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Update on Omicron

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Re: Update on Omicron

#381

Post by mintplant »

babyshake wrote: post #375
PostOnce wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's plausible, but it's not the whole picture. It may only partially explain some of the problem. We have, in the wealthy west, millions of vaccine-hesistant and vaccine-denialist people. I'm not just talking about poor or uneducated people, either. I personally know wealthy, educated, analytical people who have bought into the fearmongering and propaganda. I was shocked to find how deeply skeptical they were. I w…

I don't personally believe this, but I know some people who claim that Robert Malone who invented mRNA is saying that the mRNA vaccines are more likely to create worse mutations of the disease. It seems more intuitive that getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent mutations but I'm curious if there is a good response to people who do have these concerns about the mRNA vaccines.

Robert Malone advanced mRNA research and technology, but no one "invented" mRNA. mRNA is a naturally-occurring biological molecule and a key component of protein synthesis.

Re: Update on Omicron

#383

Post by throwaway894345 »

petesergeant wrote: post #305
throwaway894345 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first and most important step in the New Zealand strategy is “be an island”. You need a lot of draconianism to make up for land borders.

Thailand did well with a zero Covid policy until Delta, and has plenty of land border

“Being an island helps” doesn’t mean “the only thing that helps is being an island”.

Re: Update on Omicron

#384

Post by XorNot »

oezi wrote: post #235
XorNot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought the lethality was just the immune system running havoc. If a virus could achieve it, it would remain symptom-less and just spread.

Viruses lyse (explode) the cells they take over in order to exit the cell, since packaging for membrane transport is much more complicated.

Unchecked, they would just exponentially destroy your tissue.

Cytokine storm responses are a particular kind of immune system over-reaction that can make relatively benign viruses much more dangerous to a healthy host then a more immunologically suppressed host, but that's not the behaviour of COVID-19 which is showing pretty standard lethality profiles.

Re: Update on Omicron

#385

Post by logicalmonster »

cletus wrote: post #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 Sp…

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

Without going into the medical and scientific reasons why this perception may exist among people, I'd just like to point out that trust in the media and other institutions has been sabotaged over the last 5-6 years among a non-trivial percentage of the population, perhaps permanently, just for the sake of political victory.

The lesson that these institutions should learn is a self-reflective critical one that they'll forever refuse to acknowledge. Don't cry wolf repeatedly for years and then complain that the ignorant villagers won't believe literally anything you have to say on any topic ever again.

Re: Update on Omicron

#386

Post by trasz »

Alex3917 wrote: post #97
Taywee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that the most up-to-date data at the time? Are you claiming that they did find clear evidence and were lying about it, or that they somehow should have had evidence to the contrary at that time? Just like any burgeoning subject, you should generally keep up with the expert recommendations. Expecting them to have had all the answers and get everything exactly right in a circumstance with as many unknowns as thi…

> Wasn't that the most up-to-date data at the time? No, China was already arresting doctors for warning about human-to-human transmission in December. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/asia/Li-Wenliang-ch...

Can’t believe we still have to deal with this FUD.

No, China “hasn’t been arresting doctors”; in particular Li Wengliang was never arrested. He had “a talk”, similar to certain American YouTuber visited by NSA for not being patriotic enough.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

Re: Update on Omicron

#387

Post by seanmcdirmid »

serf wrote: post #189
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Politicians that do the right thing regardless of election prospects simply aren’t in power long enough (or even at all) for you to notice them. A real “survival bias” at work.

The alternative (an autocracy) doesn’t work out any better, so even though our system has flaws, it is still better than the alternative.

Re: Update on Omicron

#388

Post by AnimalMuppet »

trasz wrote: post #386
Alex3917 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wasn't that the most up-to-date data at the time? No, China was already arresting doctors for warning about human-to-human transmission in December. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/asia/Li-Wenliang-ch...

Can’t believe we still have to deal with this FUD. No, China “hasn’t been arresting doctors”; in particular Li Wengliang was never arrested. He had “a talk”, similar to certain American YouTuber visited by NSA for not being patriotic enough. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

What, specifically, are you hinting at?

"Vagueposting" is really annoying. Tell, don't make us guess.

Re: Update on Omicron

#389

Post by [deleted] »

flerovium wrote: post #268
DeusExMachina wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to eradicate covid everywhere, simultaneously or otherwise. It's now widely accepted that the virus continues to circulate even in vaccinated people. Besides, you are not even going to vaccinate 100% of any western country, let alone all of them or the entire world. Milder mutation are what is actually going to make the virus endemic, like it happened to the Spanish flu. Reports from the South African…

This is a misconception: it is not known that the virus will become less deadly over time; in fact, there is good reason to believe that it may become more deadly because virulence is positively associated with tramissibility. https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/will-covid-19-evolve-be-mo...

[deleted]

Re: Update on Omicron

#390

Post by colordrops »

dadjoker wrote: post #229

Dr Angelique Coetzee, chairwoman of the South African Medical Association: “It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: th…

If it turns out that it is indeed extremely mild, does not cause deaths, and an infection with it confers immunity to covid in general, shouldn't it be allowed to run like wildfire?
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