Why Omicron and not Nu?
Nu means naked in Portuguese (and Spanish I think?) Maybe they wanted to avoid all the lazy puns. A pretty significant part of the world speaks either of those two languages.
Not it Spanish
Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
81–90 of 337 posts
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#82Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live with it? It will continue to mutate and spread for years to come. Putting life on pause should've never been an option because of the toxic precedent it created.
Imagine there was a fire near where you live, constantly spreading and endangering lives in your community. Would you say people can just "learn to live it"?
You mean like we learned to live with the far more deadly (at least initially) influenza?
As your body increasingly comes in contact with it you’ll build a solid immunity. Similar to the other mRNA viruses such as RSV (dangerous to babies, but almost no one else).
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#83Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live with it? It will continue to mutate and spread for years to come. Putting life on pause should've never been an option because of the toxic precedent it created.
> Will people ever get over sensationalism and learn to live it?
You see, that's the crux of the matter: Not everyone can live with it. Literally. So far, it killed more than 5 million people globally. There is also the issue with possibly lasting brain damage (even occuring in cases that weren't severe enough for hospitalization) and life-wrecking long covid. Compassionate people have a problem ignoring all that.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
They use the greek alphabet to avoid stigmatising or politicizing the origins the various variants. They also pick names that are easy to remember and pronounce as opposed to the more technical names (ie. B.1.1.529).
These names are for public consumption. The reality is a world of tens of thousands variants that are constantly evolving. The B.1.1.529 is from a computer program that names clusters of variants via a clustering algorithm.
Pangolin, pangolout
https://github.com/cov-lineages/pangolin
I'm surprised it has so few stars, watches, and forks given how big a deal it is.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strikes me as unnecessarily early to make such a claim.
Testing of vaccines against this new variant is already starting.[1] First results in 2 weeks. Pfizer says that if they have to generate a new vaccine for this variant, it will take about 100 days.[2] That's the great thing about this mRNA vaccine technology - given the gene sequence of a virus, a vaccine can be designed. The original Moderna vaccine was designed in two days. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/omicron-vari…
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strikes me as unnecessarily early to make such a claim.
Testing of vaccines against this new variant is already starting.[1] First results in 2 weeks. Pfizer says that if they have to generate a new vaccine for this variant, it will take about 100 days.[2] That's the great thing about this mRNA vaccine technology - given the gene sequence of a virus, a vaccine can be designed. The original Moderna vaccine was designed in two days. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/omicron-vari…
Delta has been in the wild for some time and boosters for it are still being tested. I’d take such claims with a grain of salt. If this variant has significant immune evasion from prior infection or vaccination, 100 days is a lot of time to wreak havoc. There are also myriad logistical problems if we have to boost everyone again that will drag things out.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#87Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#88My current take (not a virologist, doctor): At this point, if you are not immunocompromised and you have the first vaccination and a booster. You should be able to easily recover regardless of the mutation(s). The virus would need to completely diverge from SARS-CoV-2 in order to fully defeat the countermeasures of the current vaccinations.
This does have quite a few mutations, including several that are pretty rare. https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-designation/issues/343
Are people getting sicker with it?
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine there was a fire near where you live, constantly spreading and endangering lives in your community. Would you say people can just "learn to live it"?
You mean like we learned to live with the far more deadly (at least initially) influenza? As your body increasingly comes in contact with it you’ll build a solid immunity. Similar to the other mRNA viruses such as RSV (dangerous to babies, but almost no one else).
Influenza didn't kill 5+ million people in two years.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#90Here's the link on CoVariants (aka 21K): https://covariants.org/variants/21K Gives a better breakdown of what we're actually talking about.
Also known as B.1.1.529
Variant21K appears to have arisen in November 2021, possibly in South Africa. Early sequences are predominantly from South Africa, though also detected in Botswana and Hong Kong.
21K is primarily of concern due to the large number of mutations it has in the Spike gene. Many of these variants are in the receptor binding domain and N-terminal domain, and thus may play key roles in ACE2 binding and antibody recognition.
This literally reads like post apocalyptic fan fiction.