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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is way better than what the media has been "speculating".
I do wish people would be more specific when saying “the media”. There are a lot of media outlets out there, some are level headed, some are hysterical.
South Africa's COVID-19 adviser, Prof Barry Schoub told Sky News that so far, most Omicron cases, were mild. https://youtu.be/3RSRtuRm92o Edit: "South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... "Dr Angelique Coetzee said she was first alerted to the possibility of a new variant when patients in her busy pr…
> The World Health Organization is urging caution after two South African health experts, including the doctor who first sounded the alarm about the omicron variant, indicated that symptoms linked to the coronavirus strain have been mild so far.
> The initial reported infections were among university students, WHO said, adding that younger patients tend to have milder symptoms.
> “Understanding the level of severity of the omicron variant will take days to several weeks,” WHO said in a statement, adding that “there is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with omicron are different from those from other variants.”
It's likely too early to tell yet.
I would love for a COVID variation for with low severity illness to become dominant ... forever?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In order for there to be an evolutionary pressure toward becoming less severe, having higher severity has to give some disadvantage - e.g. killing the host before it can spread the disease or giving stronger symptoms so hosts can be isolated before they can spread it. The corona virus is pretty unique in how much it can spread before/without any symptoms showing up, which should mean there's relatively less room for…
I think it is the other way around, there is no pressure to maintain a high severity as long as the virus can spread thus leading to mutations that lose the severe traits.
TL;DR: we don't know
I just caught myself on the funny fact, that my level of trust for some stranger on HN is higher than the level of trust for WHO. They worked hard to ruin their reputation.
South Africa's COVID-19 adviser, Prof Barry Schoub told Sky News that so far, most Omicron cases, were mild. https://youtu.be/3RSRtuRm92o Edit: "South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... "Dr Angelique Coetzee said she was first alerted to the possibility of a new variant when patients in her busy pr…
https://www.yahoo.com/now/u-k-buying-time-mideast-111736790.... > The World Health Organization is urging caution after two South African health experts, including the doctor who first sounded the alarm about the omicron variant, indicated that symptoms linked to the coronavirus strain have been mild so far. > The initial reported infections were among university students, WHO said, adding that younger patients tend…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In order for there to be an evolutionary pressure toward becoming less severe, having higher severity has to give some disadvantage - e.g. killing the host before it can spread the disease or giving stronger symptoms so hosts can be isolated before they can spread it. The corona virus is pretty unique in how much it can spread before/without any symptoms showing up, which should mean there's relatively less room for…
I think it is the other way around, there is no pressure to maintain a high severity as long as the virus can spread thus leading to mutations that lose the severe traits.
I would love for a COVID variation for with low severity illness to become dominant ... forever?
I expect this to be the case since decreased severity is associated with higher virus reproduction. The main question becomes second order effects.