Day 668: Not So Fast

One of the actual surprises of the Omicron variant was when thirteen or fourteen passengers (depending on which news report you read) apparently became infected with it aboard two flights from South Africa to the Netherlands. It turns out 61 of about 600 passengers tested during that Omicron airport panic had COVID of various lettering.

A reporter trapped aboard one of the planes after it landed reported that passengers had to be tested to board, making Omicron look very speedy indeed, but the Wall Street Journal reports that many of the vaccinated weren't tested because they held an EU vaccine passport. Though they quibble about whether the COVID cases occurred among the untested vaccinated or were acquired in mid-flight, the Dutch press reports that testing indicates the cases probably did not originate aboard the plane.

In you may already be a downer news, Steve Kirsch, who's been grousing lately about getting banned from Twitter for saying COVID vaccines cause prion disease, has put together some numbers from VAERS in order to estimate when people who die of the vaccines actually die: 45% in the first two weeks, and so on. Part of the data is behind his paywall, but the curve looks pretty smooth up until that point.

P.S. Massachusetts' case numbers for the weekend plus Monday average out to only a fifth of a percentage point increase, but there may be lingering data delays due to Thanksgiving.