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Update on Omicron

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Re: Update on Omicron

#181

Post by marcosdumay »

aetherspawn wrote: post #154

Ok, my 2 cents. This happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries. They can’t afford them. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. We’re all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of the globe, for FREE, or we’…

> They can’t afford them.

This is better said as "they are not produced fast enough". That will lead you directly to the solution, instead of losing time discussing the price.

It's a very similar thing, the price poor countries pay is not enough to justify investing in extra productive capacity. There is a confounding factor that new capacity takes a long time to arrive, but even when that is taken into account, there are just not enough vaccines and there won't be on the near future.

Re: Update on Omicron

#182

Post by djbusby »

Hermel wrote: post #165
aetherspawn wrote: post #154

Ok, my 2 cents. This happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries. They can’t afford them. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. We’re all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of the globe, for FREE, or we’…

I don't think the virus could ever be stopped with today's vaccines, even if everyone was vaccinated. Data from fully or almost fully vaccinated countries clearly show that this doesn't eliminate the virus. It of course helps, but we have to depart from the idea that the "zero covid" strategies work.

We got to zero polio. What's stopping it from happening here?

Re: Update on Omicron

#183

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

duxup wrote: post #32

I would love for a COVID variation for with low severity illness to become dominant ... forever?

Let's go for endemy and be done with it. This vaccination chaos isn't more than trying to scoop water with a sieve. I'm 100% sure this is going to be one of the conclusions in 10 years. We are vainly shooting on a moving target with a musket from 100 meters. It's good effort and very lucrative but it won't work. Some people will die and some won't.

Re: Update on Omicron

#184

Post by dragontamer »

lemming wrote: post #180
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, free at the point of need, but it still needs to be paid for; do you have a suggestion. If countries take the vaccine supplies and then sell them on, what do we do then -- install a new government so we can get vaccines distributed? What if people won't take the vaccine that came from USA/China/Russia/local state they don't trust, do we somehow force them? I'm for your proposal in the general aspect of it, but ho…

If the vaccine is free, why would anyone need to sell it on?

The US government made it free to citizens. But nothing is actually free.

When some nation donates 1-million doses, there will be a market value for those doses: maybe $20 million for the batch or so.

It's not even black market vs grey market. This is just standard market economies between nations.

Re: Update on Omicron

#185

Post by freemint »

chana_masala wrote: post #102
m12k wrote: 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…

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

The study you cite doesn't seem to say what you want it to say.

> Controlling for differences across studies, secondary attack rates were higher in households from symptomatic index cases than asymptomatic index cases, to adult contacts than to child contacts, to spouses than to other family contacts, and in households with 1 contact than households with 3 or more contacts.

It acknowledges asymptomatic spread.

Re: Update on Omicron

#186

Post by FartyMcFarter »

grimdata wrote: post #179

The media blows these variants out of proportion. I've been doing research in computational epidemiology now for quite some time. Get concerned when we say there is a new strain. As for now, this new variant will be used for political purposes (look at us, we're doing something about it). This variant has been in the US for about two months, and it is easy to spot in the data in places like Colorado. Don't blame me,…

> This variant has been in the US for about two months, and it is easy to spot in the data in places like Colorado.

What is your source for this? Is there anywhere we can read about it?

edit: The New York Times seems to disagree:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/28/world/covid-omicron-...

> Omicron has not yet surfaced in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Re: Update on Omicron

#187

Post by admax88qqq »

lemming wrote: post #180
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, free at the point of need, but it still needs to be paid for; do you have a suggestion. If countries take the vaccine supplies and then sell them on, what do we do then -- install a new government so we can get vaccines distributed? What if people won't take the vaccine that came from USA/China/Russia/local state they don't trust, do we somehow force them? I'm for your proposal in the general aspect of it, but ho…

If the vaccine is free, why would anyone need to sell it on?

People will pay to skip the queue, which creates a perverse incentive to hoard and limit distribution to incentive paying.

Corrupt officials receiving free vaccine shipments could very well do this.

Re: Update on Omicron

#188

Post by [deleted] »

aetherspawn wrote: post #154

Ok, my 2 cents. This happened because there isn’t enough vaccines in third world countries. They can’t afford them. The moral of the story? It doesn’t matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. We’re all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of the globe, for FREE, or we’…

[deleted]

Re: Update on Omicron

#189

Post by serf »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #94
aortega wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you implying that someone in government has alterior motives to desire a lockdown? They have obvious ulterior motives. Political motives, or ass-covering. If they don't do a lockdown they will be utterly attacked by the opposition for 'not being proactive enough' no matter if there is only one more death. I believe this is the principal motive, health being a distant second. Remember, governments act first to ge…

Do you really mean that government acts primarily to avoid being voted out of office? Should we be shocked or disgusted by that? I guess someone like Putin doesn't have to be worried about being unelected, so they were able to go soft on the virus in Russia. But, I don't think that turned out well for them.

> Do you really mean that government acts primarily to avoid being voted out of office? Should we be shocked or disgusted by that?

shocked? no.

disgusted? yes.

the ideal politician is one that works towards societies best interests, not one that maximizes time-in-office and career security.

That isn't to say that one can't have one without the other, only to emphasize the fact that no political office was ever won on the promise of a lengthy career and self-interest.

Re: Update on Omicron

#190

Post by coolso »

ceejayoz wrote: post #172
coolso wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did better information become available, or was he misleading the public to prevent people buying too many masks making it harder for medical staff to acquire them? Either way the quote is important to inform people who may not be aware, that a Fauci quote is not necessarily the end all be all factual information the media would have you believe it is.

> Did better information become available... Yes. We have significantly more information on the utility of cloth and surgical masking than we did in March of 2020.

Ahh, so the Asian countries that have been using them for decades, as well as medical workers all over, have been hiding their secrets from us until after March 8th, 2020.

Perhaps the real answer is a little bit of both things can be true? That is, if you don’t consider Fauci an infallible deity?

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