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Update on Omicron

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101–110 of 794 posts

Re: Update on Omicron

#101
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Delta vs Alpha a pretty convincing counter argument? It was more transmissible, more severe and better at avoiding acquired immunity.

Are we certain Delta was/is more severe? Since it’s more contagious, might it also be producing a lot more mild/asymptomatic cases that don’t get reported? Severity seems like a difficult thing to measure reliably if you can’t be sure about the denominator.

Multiple countries have sustained mass testing of at least certain groups of population. The argument about undetected asymptomatic cases would be valid in early 2020 when tests were scarce, but now there are good continuous metrics from people who get tested even if asymptomatic.

Re: Update on Omicron

#102
post #25

In general, respiratory viruses tend to get less severe over time. With this mass vaccination approach it may not turn out that way by some accounts I've read.

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…

Asymptomatic spread is a myth - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Re: Update on Omicron

#103
post #57
post #38

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…

South Africa is also pissed that they've been cut off from the rest of the world. They might be downplaying.

I'm not sure I get this assumption. Few other countries were "pissed off" when borders were closed to them. I still cannot travel recreationally to Japan from the US, and that's fine.

Re: Update on Omicron

#104

TL;DR: we don't know

How then did this even become a"variant of concern" if so little is known about it?

The "concern" in "variant of concern" is a function of the number of potentially significant mutations in the spike protein. It's an indicator of unknowns (and therefore unknown risks), not a positive indicator of risk.

Re: Update on Omicron

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ulterior motive is ass-covering. If you don't order a lockdown and it was needed then lots of people die, this is very bad. If you do order a lockdown and it wasn't needed then you can say that you were just being safe. And it's hard to even tell when a lockdown wasn't needed because the very act of doing it changes the result and leads to less cases. The lockdown was successful! It's always easy to say "…

Such a one sided view. Let me tell you the truth of the matter. Government is made out of multitudes of personalities and conflicting interests. There are those that care, there are those that don't care, there are scientists, there are people who are knowledgeable of the proper action and there are those who are emotional and everything in between exists as well. It is a hodge podge of motives. Classifying governmen…

I don't understand how what you are saying refutes ass-covering at all. Yes, you have a pile of people in government with all sorts of opinions, but ultimately there is someone who has to make the decision.

If you present that person with a cloud of information from a bunch of different conflicting sources it actually incentivises ass-covering even more.

You say "ulterior ass covering agenda" but an Agenda is entirely the opposite of what an ass-coverer has.

When you don't know what you should do, you pick safe option that nobody is going to blame you for.

Re: Update on Omicron

#106
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say "excuse for another lockdown"? Are you implying that someone in government has alterior motives to desire a lockdown?

People like power, in particular politicians. The have a bias towards any measure that makes them feel powerful and in control.

In a word: Bullsh*t.

You fail to have the slightest understanding of how politics works, beyone that of a 5-year old child.

Sure, some politicians may like to 'flex', but in the real world, that is not how they do it, even for the petty motive to feel their power, beyond perhaps some petty sheriff in a no-account town. There are far better ways to 'flex' and feel one's power that do not involve making a large portion of your voters hate you. Moreover, for something like this to be implemented, MANY bureaucrats and politicians need to be involved, all with different motives, so one emotionally stunted politician could not pull it off without a lot of help, which would not be available absent decent reasons, at least in any democratic system (autocracies are an entirely different story, but AFAIK, few of us on HN currently live in one).

Re: Update on Omicron

#107
post #34
post #25

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.

Viruses aren't trying to kill their hosts, they're trying to replicate. But to replicate they kill the cells they're in.

COVID's severity is because it's making a tradeoff between the time it takes the immune system to destroy it, vs the need to get a host walking around and socializing while breathing it out onto new hosts. The lethality is a side-effect of its replication strategy.

Re: Update on Omicron

#108
No one still thinks Covid is ever going away, right? It's likely something we'll just have to deal with like the flu. For one thing, there are now Covid-19 reservoirs in various animal populations.

It's hard to say how this will evolve but there's a lot of evolutionary pressure on viruses to become more transmissible and less deadly. Why less deadly? Because a virus that is too deadly will likely die. It's why the Spanish flu is now just H1N1.

This isn't guaranteed and will no doubt join the ranks of many other anti-vaxxer straw man arguments alongside "you said the vaccine was forever", "you said the vaccine would stop transmission", "people with the vaccine still can get Covid", "people with the vaccine can still die" and so on.

It's actually quite depressing how staggeringly selfish, wildly irrational and willfully ignorant so many people are. I don't mean just being ignorant. I mean taking pride in that ignorance. Particularly in the US, it seems the anti-intellectual chickens have come home to roost in droves.

Seeing all of this I really hope there's no one out there who believes for a second that the world as a whole will sacrifice anything or even mildly inconvenience themselves when it comes to addressing climate change. It's never going to happen.

Like there are still people who believe the millions that have been killed is fake news and part of some media conspiracy.

So, I see a future with annual Covid shots just like annual flu shots. I'm personally beyond caring if any individual chooses not to get one. We've blunted the initial onslaught of a novel disease appearing in a population of >7 billion with no natural immunity (albeit at the cost of millions of lives). At this point, it's now evolution in action.

Re: Update on Omicron

#109
post #75
post #56

When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529".

The answers address your question here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-w...

[deleted]

Re: Update on Omicron

#110
post #75
post #56

When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529".

The answers address your question here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-w...

This answer does not address the why, only the 'did it happen'.

Like other commenters have said, Nu was skipped because it sounded too similar to "New", and Xi was skipped because of Xi Jinping.

It's not a conspiracy, it's to avoid political controversy, before someone starts a flamewar on here.

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