As reminders…

Alpha–Variant first identified in the UK

Beta–Variant first identified in South Africa

Gamma–Variant first identified in Brazil

Delta–Variant first identified in India

Omicron–Variant first identified in South Africa

Updating the chart above:

Ancestral: B.1.1.529 Omicron

Transmissibility: All the +

Immune Evasiveness: All the +

Vaccine Effectiveness: Check (for hospitalization)

Also as a reminder:

Influenza:

The US reported a human case of H5N1, or avian flu, which has been running rampant through herds of chickens and turkeys around the country. There is, similar to the H3N8 flu reported in China last week, little threat of spread from human to human, but those working with poultry (like the positive case in the US) can occasionally get infected. Yes, it’s always possible that it mixes with a human flu and a nasty epidemic or pandemic strain gets out, which is why the CDC watches and collects state department of health reporting on incidents like this. But so far, no major spread of H3N8 in China that we know of, and similar, no known human to human spread of this avian flu in the US. Despite the headlines.

Coronavirus:

–Bit of a mixed bag, as I am sure you have gleaned from headlines this week. There are multiple cousins of omicron making the news. In the US, BA.2.12.1 is growing as a percentage of new cases quite rapidly, and faster than BA.2, which has been driving the “look hard enough you can kind of see it” bump in new cases. This has been an acute enough rise in cases for New York to raise its alert level a notch. Meanwhile, in South Africa, there has been a sharp increase in new cases that is building exponential and may well be the start of a fall wave.

Which is sadness, and forces a slight adjustment in our base case.

The driving variants in South Africa are BA.4 and BA.5, which are also cousins of Omicron. In preprint papers, all of these new variants escape both vaccination antibodies and prior infection antibodies. Surprisingly, even having caught omicron during the omicron wave does not appear, in test tubes at least, to be all that protective. BA.4 and BA.5 have also already been found in the US, with the earliest positive samples from the end of March. Meaning they have been spreading for a month. It is safe to assume that these are already global as well.

On the plus side, despite shockingly high contagiousness, there has been no increase in hospitalizations or deaths. While those are lagging indicators, South African researchers are already suggesting that disease severity will be similar to omicron. So -far- less likely to result in hospitalization or death, even though it is evading antibodies, and breakthrough seems a possibility for sure.

Also on the plus side, pre-print publications on test tube data suggest that bebtelovimab and cilgavimab are still effective at neutralizing all of these new omicron variants. Please note that bebtelovimab is made by my former employer, and I have no current positions long or short in that company. The world also has other medications approved for treatment of COVID.

–On the conspiranoia beat, the Government Accountability Office was asked to investigate claims by employees of the FDA, the CDC and the NIH regarding reports of “political influence” on the scientific reports, conclusions and recommendations from those agencies regarding the COVID pandemic. You can read the report here, but the money quote is this:

“Through semi-structured interviews and a confidential hotline, employees at CDC, FDA, and NIH told GAO they observed incidents that they perceived to be political interference but did not report them for various reasons. These reasons included fearing retaliation, being unsure how to report issues, and believing agency leaders were already aware. HHS could strengthen its desired goal of sustaining a culture of scientific integrity by developing procedures for reporting and addressing political interference in scientific decision-making. Such procedures would ensure that employees know how to report allegations, and that HHS’s agencies have a clear, consistent process for investigating and addressing such allegations. To help reduce employees’ fear of retaliation and encourage appropriate reporting, agencies could include information on whistleblower protections, and clarify any reporting requirements for employees who believe they observed potential political interference in scientific decision-making.”

This covers both administrations responding to the pandemic, for the record, and probably should surprise no one that large government agencies run by political appointees see political interference in their work. Given the stakes and the mission of those organizations, no, this probably should NOT be happening.

–Elsewhere on the conspiranoia beat, #pfizerdocuments was trending, raising claims already made about the tens of thousands of documents that Pfizer has been forced by FOIA requests to release around its vaccine. The most prominent of these on the internets is ~1200 deaths reported within 90 days of receiving the vaccine.

“The internet conspiracists were right! It’s unsafe! We iz all doooooomed!” I hear you say, Hypothetical Doomer Reader.

Well, no, because lost in this is that the documents in question recording all adverse events, including deaths, within 90 days of receipt of the product are REQUIRED to be collected, and really function as a list of cases to be investigated to see how plausible it was that the product caused the adverse event. Just like people can die with and not of COVID, such as having the big heart attack by coincidence in a day or two of the rapid antigen test popping positive on your sniffle, so too can you have a heart attack by coincidence around the vaccination without the vaccine causing it. The great majority of those 1200 cases have been ruled out as being caused or even probably or possibly caused by the vaccine. Even -that- is remarkable considering you have billions of doses out thus far. On the other hand, they did show more myocarditis events, especially younger males, than you would have expected by chance, and hence the advisories that came about that particular potential side effect.

There are many reasons to dislike Pfizer. The #pfizerdocuments are not among them, and don’t really show what the internet thinks they do.

Socioeconomic:

–More of the same this week. Indonesia’s navy started intercepting ships trying to leave with palm oil–they are quite serious about that export ban. Brazil’s largest industrial farmer has reported due to price and availability that it will be using 20-25% less fertilizer this year. Coffee farmers in the major South and Central American coffee growing regions are also using less fertilizer. For example, a Costa Rican co-op of 1200 coffee farmers said yields may slip 15% due to the high cost, and thus less use, of fertilizers. Same for rice, with yields in the largest rice producing countries expected to fall by 36 million tons.

Yield per acre of everything is going to be down through 2023 at least. “Down how much” is now the question. But everyone is going to be hit by it.

–For example, word back from one of our UK correspondents that sale of cooking oil is being rationed to 3 bottles per customer by the retail food chains. Which led to long lines, as everyone tried to stock up on what was available, viewing this rationing as a harbinger of possible complete unavailability later on this year or early next.

–In the US, Biden Administration spokesfolks went on the air to say that the high cost and unavailability of industrial produced fertilizer was a good thing by forcing greater use on manure fertilizers. Which, as we mentioned a few updates ago (but NOT mentioned by the Administration mouthpieces), have already been completely bought up this year. Farmers ain’t stupid.

As we also mentioned, while manure fertilizer is great and highly sustainable, the old ways of farming come with tradeoffs. Yes, you can sustainably farm good arable land for centuries with them–but you will not get the same yield as you do with modern industrial farming techniques and fertilizers. Part of the fields will be completely fallow, for example. Less good land, such as, for example, a LOT of Brazilian farms, are not much more than subsistence level without industrial fertilizers and farming.

There will be a food crisis this fall, and through next spring, at a minimum. The only question is how severe it will be. And yes, it is likely to come with further geopolitical instability, and since many supply chains are still global, additional knock on supply chain disruption.

Cascading supply chain disruption will be the norm through the end of this year, at least, with non-zero chances of cascading supply chain failure.

–As always, it is the poorest who will suffer the most. Remember your neighbor, be the Good Samaritan, and spare what you can.

—Excellent article from people with more logistics experience than me and more examples from on the ground about what will happen to supply chains once Shanghai re-opens completely.

–In other socioeconomic news, a Vice News investigation and FOIA requests discovered that the CDC paid $420,000 for cell phone use data from a sketch data broker, which allowed insight into how the tracked phones users work, where they go, and where they live. The CDC acquired it for “multiple general CDC purposes”, which included, apparently, tracing of the cell phones of the entire Najavo Nation to see how compliant they were with CDC recommendations and “tracking patterns of those visiting K-12 schools”.

I know–hard to believe that minority groups with historical reasons to mistrust the US government had some vaccine reticence, huh?

–Which brings up the announcement in the past week that the US was creating a “disinformation board” within the Department of Homeland Security.

Because the government that told you there were no UFOs, only weather balloons, until last year when admitting that yeah, there are things flying out there on military video that don’t have immediate explanation… the government that got WMD in Iraq wrong… the government that was sure that Afghanistan pullout would not be a debacle and was sure that the family hit by a missile in the Afghanistan retreat were really Taliban terrorists and neither fired nor disciplined those who made that terrible call… the government that ran MKUltra… the government that ran Iran Contra… the government that told you after the fact that they lied to you about NOT needing masks at the start of COVID (for your own good)… the government that traced the Najavo Nation’s cell phones to investigate compliance with CDC recommendations… the same government that STILL has no explanation of who funded Epstein, or convincing explanation for the irregularities around his death and has somehow arrested no co-conspirators despite Ghislaine being found guilty of child sex trafficking as part of Epstein’s network (trafficking to –whom– one wonders?)… the SAME GOVERNMENT that just acknowledged significant “adverse political influence” in the science of its major scientific institutions… the SAME government that, yeah, you get the point and I can go on for awhile here.  

-That- government can (at least in its own eyes) ab-sol-ute-ly be trusted to -apolitically- determine truth and falsehood, and project open and sincere candor–to “protect you” from disinformation.

Well, that solves it!  There is no chance that board, will, in any way, undermine already tenuous trust in the institutions. There is no -way- this board even being formed is a symptom of how high the bonfire of credibility has really become. No way. None whatsoever.

Because there is enough trust in this government right now, buoyed by its past track record of complete candor and honesty, that proclamations and determinations of what is “disinformation” will be immediately trusted by a sober, rational body politic, and reflect a shared consensus of truth and reality on which to base policy and votes.

Bonfire’s over folks!  Pack up your marshmallows and head home.

—For the record, this is not solely a knock on the US government.  Every government around the world is dishonest to some degree, and all through history. They -all- do this, from Russian media twisting itself in ever more insane knots to justify its war of aggression on Ukraine to China on just about everything to “Baghdad Bob.”  It is the nature of governments to lie when facts embarrass the regime and thus might threaten its credibility and authority.  And perceived credibility and perceived competence and perceived authority are perceptions valued HIGHLY by the kind of people who care about fancy sounding titles and who like to feel in charge of things.  They value these perceptions much more than they actually should.  Which causes them to predictably react poorly, like choosing to just lie when facts might draw those perceived qualities into question. 

Such is human nature and the nature of human governments. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be unto the end…

–Anyways, your chances of catching coronavirus are equivalent to the chances of running into a margarita or three, and maybe some kickass tacos today.

<Paladin>