What credibility does the WHO have at this point?
Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
281–290 of 337 posts
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just don't build capacity against something that grows exponentially until it hits a substantial part of the overall population. Say a country like the UK, at the peak of the curve, would have 1% of their population getting sick everyday for a week or two, and 1% of that getting in a hospital (very conservative since 1% is the IFR and lots of people get out of the hospital on their legs) You might have built the…
sorry, have I been time travelled back to march 2020? I heard this exact same preposterous extrapolation then. people going mad with fear at the omnipotent power of the exponential function. hundreds of thousands in hospitals all at once, millions of people sick at a time, we were told. I should know, I was one of them. I scribbled some numbers on the back of a fag packet, concluded we were doomed, and started buying…
Thank you very much for this. You summarize my thoughts exactly. SARS-COV-2 is a real physical virus that can ruin your day. But Covid isn’t the only illness it has seemed to cause. It’s also caused one of the greatest mass hysteria events in human existence. This meme/virus we’ve been passing around for 630 days and counting is as much a illness of the mind as it is something that makes you physically I’ll.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
A heck of a lot of people really don't want to move on from all this. Life is way too short to be wasted living the way some of society seems to think is necessary "in order to take this serious". Disease and death have been a part of humanity since time began. All we can do is try to make the most out of the short time we have here on this earth. Playing this covid theater game for 2+ years is, in my opinion, an ins…
"some of you may have to die, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
You can still take vaccines, wear masks, and practice distancing. At some point your well-being becomes solely your responsbility, not everyone else's. We can debate on where that point lies. Just because your fear of COVID is the trendiest political cause doesn't necessarily mean other people's quality of lives don't matter. Life is about trade-off, not about virtue-signalling.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
They skipped nu because it sounds too much like mu, and they skipped xi because it sounds like Winnie-the-Poo.
Wait... Why did they really skip xi?
A conference room at WHO headquarters, November 2021
A: “… Ok so we agree - ‘Nu’ creates all sorts of confusion so we will skip this letter”
B: “Sounds good. What do we have next in the alphabet - ‘Xi’. Oh.”
Pause. Exchange of glances.
A: “So that’s probably no good either right?”
B: “Yeah looks like it”
A: “Because it will be hard to pronounce?”
B: “Right. Yup.”
A: “Alright, ‘Omicron’ it is then.”
B: “Done.”
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
A study in Nature had previously shown that >= 20 amino acid mutations on the spike protein was sufficient to cause immune escape from the vaccine or previous infection, but that individuals who were both previously infected and vaccinated were still able to neutralize the mutant virus. [1] The omicron variant has >30 AA mutations on the spike protein, so it remains to be seen how effective vaccines are in response t…
> individuals who were both previously infected and vaccinated were still able to neutralize the mutant virus. Mainly because of the infection, not the vaccination. Infection trains your immune response to detect multiple factors of the virus, the mRNA vaccines are only for the spike protein which has considerable mutations in later variants like this one. Arguably, traditional dead-virus vaccines might provide bette…
There are only 3 proteins on the surface of the virus and spike is most prominent.
What is actually needed and is probably working for previous infection is knowledge about proteins that are generated after entering cells.
Antibodies and cell based immunity against these do not avoid infection but will allow early elimination of the infected cells.
This is again where mRNA vaccines can shine as they can introduce any protein onto cell surface to be recognized by the immune system.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#286How much was WHO paid to skip the Greek letter Xi and go straight to Omicron
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#287Omicron? Was not it Nu like few hours ago? I like the longer name better. Our ministry of finance has already made a typo in a Facebook post calling it Mu (like the sound cows make).
They skipped nu because it sounds too much like mu, and they skipped xi because it sounds like Winnie-the-Poo.
Wouldn't be because it sounds too much like "new"? the "new variant" can be misleading.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#288Interesting choice to pick "Omicron" instead of "Nu," which news outlets had been expecting them to use. Perhaps this allows them to avoid having to use "Xi" as the name of a Covid variant, which would have been...inconvenient for the WHO.
Have you heard about the nu variant? No, what’s it called? The nu variant Yeah, does it have a name? It’s nu Yeah I know it’s new but what do they call it? What does who call it? That’s what I’m asking you! What does WHO call it?
Logged in just to reply and say I enjoyed this comment so much I've been randomly laughing over the course of the day just thinking about it again. A+++
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
>vaccine developer >Chair of ...Maryland's Newest Anthropomorphic Convention! Not sure how I feel about this. Are many vaccine developers also furries?
And he's a scientist but believes in horoscopes. I don't think I've seen someone living a more hypocritical lifestyle
"believes in" is an easy way to dismiss someone. The word "entertains" would be more accurate. The frequencies of ratios is correlated to the compositivity of the denominator. There's nothing crazy about horoscopes except taking them too seriously. There are very deep patterns in the construction of the universe, dictated by repeating patterns.
> I had, like Dewey and others, only gradually come to the understanding that these cycles arrive from outside the earth. Not only that, but quite a few of them fitted with planetary alignments, and many serious scientists or analysts do not want to go there because that is astrology and only quacks do astrology. However it is a fact that these relationships exist. There are several reasons why the planetary alignments match common cycle periods, and others why the Sun is affected by planetary alignments. Saying that does not make me an astrologer. Like many scientists I regard horoscopes as as a cruel trick played on gullible people.
Re: Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/project/about.do Its actually pretty common to venture outside the box in every regard, if you have the ability to venture outside the box.
But horoscopes, my god. They're not outside the box, they're outside reality. It's like a physicist believing in perpetual motion.
> I had, like Dewey and others, only gradually come to the understanding that these cycles arrive from outside the earth. Not only that, but quite a few of them fitted with planetary alignments, and many serious scientists or analysts do not want to go there because that is astrology and only quacks do astrology. However it is a fact that these relationships exist. There are several reasons why the planetary alignments match common cycle periods, and others why the Sun is affected by planetary alignments. Saying that does not make me an astrologer. Like many scientists I regard horoscopes as as a cruel trick played on gullible people.