Hong Kong is weird
In most countries the old are more likely to get vaccinated. In Hong Kong the old are far less likely to get vaccinated. As a result:
This FT article has the full story. China might be next, as they also have a huge number of unvaccinated old people. Not as many as HK in relative terms, but a vast number in absolute terms.
A couple of other points. In the past, I had commenters telling me that the Covid fatality rate in East Asia was lower than in the West for some sort of mysterious reason unrelated to behavior. We now know that’s false. Right now, the rate of Covid deaths in Hong Kong is really bad.
I also had commenters denying the effectiveness of vaccines, LOL.
I’m really worried about China, which just had its first two deaths in 14 months. Many more may soon follow.
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21. March 2022 at 12:57
It’s weird how most Chinese news are pretending as if nothing is happening. Its like a complete 180 from before where the narrative was, this is bad but if you listen to us everything will be fine, to, oh, nothings happening, virus is diminishing, what virus? now that shit has actually hit the fan.
Well, its not weird, it makes perfect sense why the propaganda is as such, but the dichotomy is just bizarre. Like you search on Google and there is a tweet from Carrie Lam talking about easing restrictions and return to normal right next to a chart showing things going really bad.
21. March 2022 at 14:15
Aladdin, Soon they’ll be able to return to normal because everyone will be infected. The data does show Omicron in HK
has already peaked.
China is a weird case. They are really effective at slowing Covid with social distancing and quarantines, and then lousy at vaccines. Why? I have no idea. Wasn’t the Moderna vaccine created in like 2 days? What have Chinese scientists been doing for the past two years?
21. March 2022 at 16:54
It has been my impression that Xi has based a lot of his credibility upon protecting the people and keeping covid death rates low. If true I would expect mass vaccination attempts if deaths pick up along with quarantines. Cant see them caving and using m-RNA vaccine. Maybe Sputnik? Tie them closer to Russia?
Steve
21. March 2022 at 19:38
Steve, Why wouldn’t they develop their own RNA vaccine? (I recall reading they were working on one.)
21. March 2022 at 19:50
> In the past, I had commenters telling me that the Covid fatality rate in East Asia was lower than in the West for some sort of mysterious reason unrelated to behavior. We now know that’s false.
How do we know it’s false.
> Right now, the rate of Covid deaths in Hong Kong is really bad.
Yes but that’s clearly behavioral (vaccinations). It’s tells us nothing about fatality rates normalized for behavior.
Also a few other things. CFR is not really too relevant anymore since it doesn’t track IFR. People are just not reporting/testing as can be seen in much higher test positivity rates.
IMHO, what your seeing is HK is a) low vax rates in elderly, b) less acquired natural immunity (because cumulative per capita infections are lower) c) less cautious behavior (elderly are not as careful about isolating.)
Given all that it still doesn’t explain why cumulative per capita fatalities relative to the U.S. (and other countries) are: 25% in HK, 15% in VN, 7 or 8% in S. Korea, Singapore and Japan, and 1% in Taiwan.
22. March 2022 at 09:19
From what I’ve seen, your commenters are citing studies.
And most studies in Lancet do not show strong efficacy. There are a couple that do, but those studies are funded by pharmaceuticals. If a Tobacco company published a “study” that tells you how wonderful tobacco is, would you believe them? Probably not!
Furthermore, if we lockdown the economy and setup security checkpoints on street corners, like China, the of course we would save more elderly. But this logic, or lack thereof, would lead to perpetual tyranny. You cannot control risk! It’s everywhere. An elderly could be mugged; they could slip and fall; they could catch a cold from a young man standing in the cashier line, develop pnuemonia and die. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the elderly are fragile and prone to illness!
But coercing them to take a vaccine, which also comes with risk, is not democratic! It’s also not libertarian. Those radical libertarians who think like this, and who for some strange reason call themselves libertarian, share a philosophy more akin to the CCP than to the framers. Instead of fear mongering over deaths, you ought to accept that death is a part of life. And more importantly, you ought to accept that removing the inalienable rights of others, is not the proper way to deal with your fear of death.
Let me remind you that laughing haughtily is also not a substantive argument.
22. March 2022 at 10:16
Sarah, the cost of getting a vaccine is 10 minutes of your time. Thats it. Few people here who are more libertarian are advocating lockdowns. I was opposed when they were introduced.
“And most studies in Lancet do not show strong efficacy.”
I’m sorry, this is not true. Actually, more than that, its a lie. Otherwise you can try to explain why, if the vaccines don’t work, the unvaccinated are dying at rates far higher than vaccinated people.
I hope you do realize how absurd your statement is. Saying death is part of life is one thing … saying death is part of life WHEN THERE IS A FREE 10-min CURE is quite another!
22. March 2022 at 10:17
Weird it is.
My brother-in-law, an American, is a permanent resident of HK. He tells me how strict they are, relative to any country in the west. HK Govt claims 83% of the population has had 2 shots—and 25% a third shot. They went from the lowest –or one of the 5 lowest death rates—-to currently perhaps the highest —as of now their death rate is 17 times the US.
The US is down to 700 daily deaths from 2700 in 6 weeks—almost exactly as predicted when Omicron first emerged. 6 weeks ago, death rate was 40+ times higher in US than HK!!! (approx).
But cases have already dropped by 2/3 in 10 days in HK, and deaths have already dropped 10% below the peak in 5 days.The best guess is it will follow the path the US had.
From Hong Kong data, the vaccination rate for those over 65 is about the same as for those under 65. Such a rapid increase in deaths over a 1 month period “makes no sense” relative to what we thought we knew.
But it is not vaccination rates and it is not a change in policy. As far as China mainland is concerned we have no relevant information—so no point in discussing it.
Could it be there was really no way to stop it? That is, is it plausible that eventually, the same percentage of any population will eventually get Covid? This would be consistent with what our government implied back in 2020.
Still, it makes one skeptical of all numbers.
22. March 2022 at 10:47
Could it be there was really no way to stop it?
Omicron now is the most infectious disease there is, matching measles. There is no way to stop it.
Morgan Stanley now projects 0% growth in China this quarter, because of the strict lockdowns spreading across the country. (When did you expect to see “0% growth in China”?)
But lockdowns as a primary strategy make zero sense fighting a disease like this. Even if successful in the short term they leave the entire population vulnerable to the virus that will always be out there, which inevitably means repeat repeat repeat.
Lockdowns do make sense as a delaying strategy providing time to get the population vaccinated. The Chinese have had two years now to accomplish this, as the entire rest of the world has done. But their vaccines are poor, they refuse to import effective western vaccines (CCP pride?), and many millions remain unvaccinated even so. And Chinese health facilities are too feeble to handle surges, especially for all the many millions in poor rural areas. Thus … lockdowns by hard necessity. Keep repeating…
And the Chinese were looking down on the USA and west for our poor handling of Covid?
22. March 2022 at 11:16
“There are a couple that do, but those studies are funded by pharmaceuticals.”
Assuming you are talking about vaccines the very large majority of studies are not funded by pharmaceuticals.They have been very effective and very safe. They have been published in many journals other than the Lancet and they have been performed by many countries other than the US.
Steve
22. March 2022 at 16:59
dtoh, When Vietnam had less than 100 deaths out of 100 million people, I had commenters speculating that there was some sort of genetic difference among the Vietnamese. They didn’t want to believe that the Vietnamese had behaved more sensibly than Americans. We now know that if people don’t behave sensibly, there can be mass deaths in any country.
“25% in HK”
And virtually all in the last few weeks, with many more dying every single day.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china-hong-kong-sar/
And those are deaths from Omicron, which is much milder than delta.
Michael, “From Hong Kong data, the vaccination rate for those over 65 is about the same as for those under 65.”
What??
23. March 2022 at 07:33
Re “what?” To @ Scott
You wrote “ China might be next, as they also have a huge number of unvaccinated old people. Not as many as HK in relative terms, but a vast number in absolute terms.”
I interpreted this quote that HK has a huge percent of unvaccinated older people. But as I noted , It does not—-they have a very high overall vaccination rate, including older people. Maybe you did not mean that—-therefore my mistake.
But you seem to have missed the omicron hypothesis. That was my major point—-and it has nothing to do with vaccinations being low, because they are not low.
Cases are down today 72% from the peak March 5th. They are dropping at an extraordinary rate. Deaths are dropping at the “omicron delayed rate”. Or so it seems. In the end, death rate will drop back to very low rates.
It raises many questions.
23. March 2022 at 07:57
Moderna had their mRNA vaccine in two days, in the sense that they had a target mRNA chain that they wanted to use in a computer. Getting that mRNA chain created, in physical space, at scale is a very different problem, that requires not just ignoring the patents, but a whole lot of very specific industrial knowledge about process that almost nobody was working on. Even if one decides to try to copy the process with publicly available information, it’s not really going to be pretty.
It’s not quite in the realm as the difference between having a perfect diagram of an apple M1 pro chip, and being able to produce a working one, but it’s the same kind of idea. If you asked the united states government to produce an M1 chip in US soil within the year, we’d not be able to do it. Even two years might not work, and that’s with Intel in our borders: Their stock price would skyrocket if they had working technology that could do it.
Could have China cloned the west’s manufacturing capabilities for this in a couple of years? Maybe, if they had gone with a “money is just a figment of our imagination” policy, and thrown everything at the problem. But they also had an establishment that had their own idea of how to make working vaccines, and it sure seems easier than just cloning Moderna… if it worked.
So sure, they messed up by not listening to Tabarrok, and betting a lot of money on any and all possible avenues of improvement from day 1, but given not doing that from the beginning, the turnaround to clone Moderna’s solution would have been very impressive, even by Chinese state capacity standards.
23. March 2022 at 11:36
Michael, You said:
“HK has a huge percent of unvaccinated older people. But as I noted , It does not”
Huh? Where do you get your info?
Bob, Thanks for that info. Even a good non-RNA vaccine (like AZ) would be helpful to China, wouldn’t it?
23. March 2022 at 15:12
“They didn’t want to believe that the Vietnamese had behaved more sensibly than Americans. We now know that if people don’t behave sensibly, there can be mass deaths in any country.”
Fallacy of the converse. They had lower fatalities therefore they acted sensibly. AFAIK there is no evidence to suggest that the Vietnamese or the Japanese acted more sensibly. And from what I’ve observed they did not.
23. March 2022 at 17:31
This article has a graph; shows only 40% of HK’s over-80’s with 2 doses (vs. 95% of 40-49’s):
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-23/hong-kong-omicron-cases-force-covid-zero-rethink
24. March 2022 at 06:00
Go to “Hong Kong vaccination dashboard” —-can be found within Covidvaccine.gov.HK
Need to manipulate charts—-but you can find one that shows by age group the percent who have been vaccinated (1, 2 or 3 shots). The following is 2 shots (few get 3 shots)
Age 60-69%. 82%
Age 70-79. 71%
Age 80+Age 41%
Age peak vaccination rate is 30-60 years old. Older than 80 have the lowest rate as others have said. Pharmaceutical-technology. Com as of March 7th wrote — “The city’s death rate from the latest wave is 0.36% and involves people aged 11 months to 108 years old, with a median age of 85, health authorities said at a news conference. Six of the fatalities were children, four of whom were under the age of 10.”
This is a super fast version of the omicron hypothesis. That is the story—-not lack of vaccines of the aged. That does not explain the speed of change. As of today cases are down 75% since the above story was written 14 days ago. The death rate is already down 13.6% in 8 days.
24. March 2022 at 10:17
Vaccine production is not that trivial. You need a lot of know-how that you can’t just steal. Non-RNA vaccines may be even more complicated than RNA vaccines in development.
Name a blockbuster drug that was developed in China. There is none.
In addition, there is relevant political influence on research in countries like Russia and China. Presidents like to announce weeks in advance that they have found the very best vaccine in the world. There is then no going back from these statements. The failure is systematic.
24. March 2022 at 10:58
anon/portly, Yes, so why couldn’t Michael look at that graph? Is it that hard to do?
24. March 2022 at 11:54
“Yes, so why couldn’t Michael look at that graph? Is it that hard to do?”
Better yet, why did he write this?
“This is a super fast version of the omicron hypothesis. That is the story—-not lack of vaccines of the aged. That does not explain the speed of change.”
He himself provides a statistic – “median age of 85” that suggests that “lack of vaccines of the aged” might at least be “a” story if not “the” story. So he provides a reason to *not* accept his own “not the story” claim, and provides no reason or argument in favor of this claim.
On top of that, what model and data did he use to determine that HK’s Omicron wave was “super fast,” and then why, if this is so, is that “the story?” Who knows?
24. March 2022 at 16:42
I haven’t read a Krugman column in a couple years. Then the algorithm sends me this…
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/opinion/china-russia-xi-jin-ping.html
Yup. Including by guess who:
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/11/05/china-has-handled-covid-pandemic-better-than-the-us-paul-krugman.html
I’m glad he still doesn’t disappoint. 🙂
At least the CCP is angry at him now. Good for him:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202203/24/WS623bdc1ca310fd2b29e52ff0.html
“Paul Krugman could not avoid spreading disinformation about China and politicizing COVID-19 in his column for The New York Times…”
24. March 2022 at 19:12
Seems to me this is just a case of elderly HKers not get vaxxed.
Still does not tell us anything about why some countries had dramatically lower infection rates and IFRs after discounting out known differences.
25. March 2022 at 10:18
dtoh, Yes, not getting vaxxed. That’s what I meant about behavior. When East Asian countries don’t take precautions, millions will die.
25. March 2022 at 13:26
@Scott/Christian List/anon
So now we changed the topic to which vaccine is better? You did not mention that in your essay. what is with you guys? Their vaccination rate is far higher than ours.
Yes,vaccination rate for over 80 is low—but it has been low for over 2 years. How can that explain the changes –up and down—in cases over the last 2 months
Why can’t you accept that the change in the number of cases has risen–and declined so fast—and not see that it as something to do with something other than vaccines?
Explain this please—I cannot
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china-hong-kong-sar/
25. March 2022 at 17:52
The Hong Kong rate of rise and fall of Omicron looks very close to that of South Africa where it first appeared — four weeks rocketing up from nil, four weeks plunging back down, over. When I saw the chart for South Africa at Our World in Data, I predicted for my friends the same four weeks/up down here in NY – and was spot on to the very date. It’s fun to predict the future. Even more so when one is right.
Vaccinations have little to do with this pattern of infections as Omicron is the breakthrough variant. Vaccinations have a lot to do with the outcomes of infections, the vaxed who are infected with Omicron have a very low mortality rate. At least with our western vaccinations.
I may or may not have had Omicron. I was closely and extensively exposed to it, but I was vaxed and boosted. Shortly after I maybe got a little cold. The symptoms were exactly like Omicron, but also like a little cold. My doctor says we’ll never know.
26. March 2022 at 09:09
“Yes,vaccination rate for over 80 is low—but it has been low for over 2 years. How can that explain the changes –up and down—in cases over the last 2 months
“Why can’t you accept that the change in the number of cases has risen–and declined so fast—and not see that it as something to do with something other than vaccines?”
Maybe Jim Glass has answered this better, but hasn’t this been the standard pattern with Omicron? E.g., everywhere in America? Omicron’s success (in crowding out other variants) is (by all accounts) due to its ability to evade prior immunity.
Of course it has “something to do with something other than vaccines” (levels of natural immunity, masks, behavior, etc) just as it has “something to do with vaccines” (how many in group x with y shots, for all x) as well, just like every Omicron wave everywhere.
The specific reason why the vaccination status of the elderly seems to be “the story,” despite the (unmotivated by any actual argument) claim above that it isn’t, is not so much about “HK had an Omicron wave” but “HK had a lot of deaths in its Omicron wave.”
26. March 2022 at 13:26
So many things Michael needs explained . . .
27. March 2022 at 10:46
Yes Scott, it does. In the peak of Omicron in the US 810000 cases a day were recorded on Jan 12. Deaths when omicron peaked were 2700. 1 out of 411 people got it daily. 1 out of 123,000 died daily. Two months later, now, 26,000 cases a day are recorded or 1 out of 12800, 98.5% lower. Deaths are 597 daily versus 2700 or 80% lower (that is with the lag). (1 out of 555000)
On Jan 12, 638 cases a day were recorded in HK—or 1 out of 11000. Now, 2 months later (March 26) 12400 cases a day are recorded—or 1/411–coincidently the peak we had 2 months ago.
Cases peaked in HK 18 days ago at 1 out of 115. Versus 2 months ago in US (1/411). Cases are now 1/ 625. Still high, but down 80% in 18 days.
Peak in deaths was 7 days ago (1/27000) about 5x our peak 2 months ago. Death rate is 1/36000—or 15x US. But all of this happened in 2 weeks.
66% of Americans are vaccinated. 80% of HK are vaccinated. Only over age 80 are vaccinations lower than US. But almost all the deaths in HK happened in the last few WEEKS. What do you think the average vaccination levels were in US when we were dying from Covid over the last 2 years? Higher than HK now?
Deaths are declining rapidly——and that includes their crappy vaccines —-which was not my topic. Within 2 months This will be back to almost 1 month ago in HK
My point is obvious. How the hell is this happening? I have said I have no idea. You have said it is OBVIOUS it is less vaccines for the aged. Your answer is clearly not remotely consistent with the facts. And I love you ass kissing followers :-).
27. March 2022 at 17:04
Omicron’s success (in crowding out other variants) is (by all accounts) due to its ability to evade prior immunity.
No, it’s because it is much more infectious than the other variants so it gets there first, and then it provides immunity against all the prior variants.
Happily, it is also significantly less dangerous than the prior variants. If it were more so things would be very different. Lucky there.
There is video of doctors in Africa saying “Omicron is the vaccine we never received”, very moving.
28. March 2022 at 03:31
Scott——-further, Has Japan death rate spiked because older people have not been vaccinated? No. Omicron has same pattern as US and HK and SK. Probably a lot others too. While we all have accepted Omicron is easier to catch, goes away faster, kills more people but a lower percent of people, it is still surprising to me that it caught on in countries where other prior variants did not. (perhaps I mean the opposite—-why did other variants not catch on?).
28. March 2022 at 11:06
MR presents some stats the exact timing of which is unclear, because he doesn’t write carefully, but I think he is saying US deaths have fallen by about 80% in about 60 days. 80% in 60 days would be falling by about 2.3% per day, in a simple exponential model.
I also think he is saying US cases fallen by 96.8% (not 98.5%, 26K is 3.2% of 810K) in about 60 days, which is about 6.8% per day.
(He says “two months” but also is comparing Jan 12 to “now” so maybe I should have used 70 or 75 days, I’m not sure).
HK’s cases he says have fallen by 80% in 18 days which would be 8.6% per day. (Using 1/115 and 1/625 makes it 9.0% per day).
So I think he has established, if we take his stats as correct, and if I am interpreting him correctly, that HK has had a somewhat “steeper” Omicron wave than the US.
Then, HK’s death peak was 5X (or 4.6X) the US death peak.
I think all this makes sense so far.
Next: “Death rate is 1/36000—or 15x US. But all of this happened in 2 weeks.”
The death rate falling from 1/27000 to 1/36000 (25% drop) in 7 days would be exponential (or linear for that matter) decline of about 4% per day. So it appears that the HK and US waves are similar in that cases are falling faster than deaths in both places.
What MR has established is that the HK waves was somewhat faster, and the peak much higher. (Case peak 3.6X, death peak 4.6X). (Cases and deaths falling by 9% and 4% per day in HK, 6.8% and 2.3% in US).
Next:
“66% of Americans are vaccinated. 80% of HK are vaccinated. Only over age 80 are vaccinations lower than US. But almost all the deaths in HK happened in the last few WEEKS. What do you think the average vaccination levels were in US when we were dying from Covid over the last 2 years? Higher than HK now?”
HK, like some other countries in Asia and Oceania, had very few cases and deaths until recently, and now they’ve had a big wave.
Perhaps the point is that HK had high vax levels and then had an Omicron wave? But lots of other places had high vax levels – higher than US vax levels – and had Omicron waves also. The big difference with HK is they had suppressed Covid before Omicron.
“Deaths are declining rapidly——and that includes their crappy vaccines —-which was not my topic. Within 2 months This will be back to almost 1 month ago in HK”
This just seems to recapitulate the statistical point made already – it’s difficult to tell what the point of this eccentrically composed paragraph is.
“My point is obvious. How the hell is this happening?”
It’s hard to tell whether “this” means “HK, like many other places, had an Omicron wave” or whether it means “HK, like some other places, suppressed the virus and then had an Omicron wave” or whether it means “something peculiar or unusual about the size and/or velocity of HK’s Omicron wave.”
“You have said it is OBVIOUS it is less vaccines for the aged. Your answer is clearly not remotely consistent with the facts.”
Well, here the general idea would be to compare a country like New Zealand, which is very similar to HK is two ways; almost no cases or deaths until very recently, then a lot of cases recently, and very different in two ways, vax rates among the elderly, and deaths. NZ: high vax rates among elderly, very few deaths. HK: low vax rates among the elderly, many deaths.
Why “vaccines for the aged” is not “remotely consistent with the facts,” in MR’s mind, remains a mystery, because he has omitted to provide us with any explanation for why he thinks this is so.
There’s a comparison of HK with the US, but MR never really uses it to establish an actual point, he just presents the comparison and then makes some murky statements suggesting some sort of significance – it’s difficult to critique that sort of thing.
29. March 2022 at 13:18
I am fascinated you checked my numbers—-and yes they were inexact and rounded—but you basically agreed with my description—so far so good.(by the way, when one calculates a percentage drop from point A to point B, its linearity or “exponentials” are merely different ways to characterize the path from Point A to Point B—so it did not need to be addressed as the time frame of 18 days seems to demonstrate the speed of the drop—which you also agree with—again, so far so good.
oddly, you simultaneously repeated what I wrote and then pretended not to understand it. You must believe, that over a two year period the average number of vaccinated people in the US (from 2020-2021) was lower than Hong Kong over the last 2 weeks—and/or HK’s practices caused almost zero deaths until Omicron showed up—-which seems ridiculous to me—–thats my opinion
Thats my point—you may not agree with it—you may even be right–but you do understand my point.
30. March 2022 at 10:10
“oddly, you simultaneously repeated what I wrote and then pretended not to understand it.”
I would say I summarized and made sense of the stats you presented, I didn’t “repeat” them. As follows:
“What MR has established is that the HK waves was somewhat faster, and the peak much higher. (Case peak 3.6X, death peak 4.6X). (Cases and deaths falling by 9% and 4% per day in HK, 6.8% and 2.3% in US).”
“You must believe, that over a two year period the average number of vaccinated people in the US (from 2020-2021) was lower than Hong Kong over the last 2 weeks—and/or HK’s practices caused almost zero deaths until Omicron showed up….”
When you say “the average number of vaccinated people in the US” “over a two year period” “(from 2020-2021)” I think that means take the percentage of people vaccinated for each of those 730 days and then take the average of those 730 percentages? And then that’s lower than HK’s average, calculated the same way, over the past 14 days?
Yes, I believe that the average percentage of that 730 day period is lower than the average percentage over the 14 days period.
I also believe “HK’s practices caused almost zero deaths until Omicron showed up.” Why do I believe this? Just because if I go to the Worldometers web site and click on HK it shows me almost zero cases and zero deaths until just recently, and then heaps of cases and heaps of deaths just recently.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china-hong-kong-sar/
So you are right, I “must” believe one and/or the other of these things – in fact, I believe both.
You say the HK data “seems ridiculous” but why?
I’m not pretending to not understand your point, I just don’t understand it. Your point is that the HK data showing almost no cases and deaths, up until recently, must be wrong?
If the following is your point, I guess it’s a reasonable point, about which I have no idea:
“….it is still surprising to me that it caught on in countries where other prior variants did not. (perhaps I mean the opposite—-why did other variants not catch on?).”
But if the following is your point, it’s still not a point for which an argument of any sort has actually been presented (unless by “the facts” you mean something like “my surmise that the available data on HK must be incorrect”):
“My point is obvious. How the hell is [the statistical comparison between HK and US made legible by me, A/P] happening? I have said I have no idea. You have said it is OBVIOUS it is less vaccines for the aged. Your answer is clearly not remotely consistent with the facts.”