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New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

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Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#231

Post by timr »

flunhat wrote: post #214
timr wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record: I wasn't talking about me. There has been actual censorship throughout 2020. A lot of it, across all social-media platforms. I'm sure the downvoting here has nothing to do with the fact that comments get sorted to the bottom and grayed out.

> I'm sure the downvoting here has nothing to do with the fact that comments get sorted to the bottom and grayed out. Would you stop with the hysteria? You're getting downvoted not only because people disagree with you, but also because you've managed to turn that disagreement into some kind of cause for martyrdom.

> Would you stop with the hysteria?

To quote you:

"projection, plain & simple"

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#232

Post by nojito »

Anon84 wrote: post #188
rel2thr wrote: post #74

> Because the change is small, an updated vaccine doesn’t need Phase III trials and/or regularity approval. So, this whole process should take a max of 6 weeks. This appears to be incorrect, Moderna says it needs 60 days to just get into trials ( https://twitter.com/megtirrell/status/1464225637590310938 ) . The FDA has not said what the approval process will look like, but its safe to say it will be non-zero

Yes, you need to show that the new vaccine works against the new variant but not that it’s safe. So it will be much faster

They still need to do Phase 2...I don't where you got your info from, but it's very misleading.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#233

Post by bavell »

kaba0 wrote: post #56
bingohbangoh wrote: post #2

Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? I hate, __hate__ this constant fear of a lockdown. Hell, a good part of europe is in lockdown right now. I get that the lockdown is being haphazardly enforce for those countries who've decided on it but I dislike these even being rules on the books. Leave me the hell alone! If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes?…

“If we could not extinguish even the small fire, stop pouring buckets of water on it, let the whole thing burn down” It is still an exponential curve that will overflow all the hospitals the moment you stop paying attention, causing hundred thousands of additional deaths indirectly due to overworked med staff. Object permanence is a thing.

What I can't understand is the risk/benefit of firing thousands of unvaccinated medical staff across the US while we're in the middle of a pandemic and already experiencing hospital staff shortages.

Isn't that just exacerbating the problem? Were those unvaccinated medical workers really killing more people than they saved? I honestly don't know but it doesn't feel like we really did the calculus and are instead just shooting from the hip.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#234

Post by johnchristopher »

refurb wrote: post #220
Anon84 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you need to show that the new vaccine works against the new variant but not that it’s safe. So it will be much faster

Why would you not need to show it’s safe? A new mRNA vaccine would be introducing different mRNA, which produces new antigen proteins and elicits a different immune response.

If it elicited the same immune response it wouldn't be much of a use though, right ?

Anyway, how do they know the usual but new seasonal flu vaccine is safe ? Can't the same framework apply ?

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#235

Post by johnchristopher »

> We know that B.1.1.529 is not a “Delta plus” variant. The figure below shows a really long line, with no previous Delta ancestors. So this likely means it mutated over time in one, likely immunocompromised, individual (see my P.S. note at the end of the post).

How does that work ? Virus mutate inside the host until either death or the immune system stops it ? Why is the absence of selective pressure producing a virus more efficient at spreading ?

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#236

Post by op00to »

timr wrote: post #207
flunhat wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can barely say the results out loud lest you get silenced by the angry mob Please -- you're not being silenced, you are not some martyr, people are just disagreeing with you.

For the record: I wasn't talking about me. There has been actual censorship throughout 2020. A lot of it, across all social-media platforms. I'm sure the downvoting here has nothing to do with the fact that comments get sorted to the bottom and grayed out.

You really need to stop digging in.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#237

Post by marvin »

throwaway23487 wrote: post #135
gus_massa wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death per million inhabitants in these 4 countries: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... You can also compare with other neighbors and Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Seems like a minuscule percentage. Is that a pragmatic-enough reason to significantly deteriorate the economy and mental health of the enormous majority of people?

The GDP change in 2020 for Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland were -2.8%, -0.8%, -2.7% and -2.8%, respectively.

Sweden had no advantage over its neighbors on the economic outcome, and you'd need to cite real data in order to make an argument for mental health. Naïvely assuming a causal relationship with quarantine measures for both without considering positive effects of better health outcomes (and other factors) is fallacious.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#238

Post by Robotbeat »

bavell wrote: post #161
fragmede wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a link to a real actual science study that used tuberculosis-sized particles and found filtration efficiencies of 99.5% or higher by N95 masks. Which isn't minor. It's been over a year. If you're not using an N95, you're doing yourself and those around you a disservice. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9487666/

I've never seen anyone in public with an N95 mask since the pandemic started but I've seen plenty of cloth masks, bandanas and those cheap hospital masks.

How can you not have seen any? I see the KN95 type masks all over the place in public and it’s the only kind I use any more, even for my kids.

I live in Virginia, FWIW.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#239

Post by bavell »

runarberg wrote: post #155
Gigachad wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns don’t make any progress. They put everything on pause. But as soon as you unpause, all of those saved lives are at the same risk they were at before. And you can’t pause forever. Each lockdown becomes less and less effective as people stop caring.

You are wrong. The virus has a higher chance of mutating if left to spread. By slowing the rate of transmission we also slow down the rate of mutation. I bet we would be seeing far more dangerous variants at this point if all countries would have just kept business as usual and allowed it to spread unhindered. In the mean time we have developed numerous vaccines and possible treatments, and have only seen a handful o…

Don't the vaccines put evolutionary pressure on the virus to mutate in order to escape them? I'm thinking of the hospital superbugs which are resistant to antibiotics.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#240

Post by paulryanrogers »

ricardobeat wrote: post #151
kaba0 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know the current view is that it won’t end, but it will become a regular the same way the flu is. There may even be yearly shots combined with flu shots for all the new variants that may evolve. I truly hate that guy, but “facts don’t care about your feelings”.

The existence of Covid won’t end, but the pandemic has to. Living with overloaded hospitals forever, or doubling/tripling our health systems capacity to deal with it permanently don’t sound like very good ideas.

Endemic aerosolized variants could ultimately cull / mame everyone with a weakened immune response. The end game could be permanently higher overall mortality and reduced respiratory fitness in a significant part of the population.

If humans evolve to adapt then those adaptations may come at the cost of something else, given large enough time scales.

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