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Update on Omicron

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Re: Update on Omicron

#421

Post by noahmasur »

nradov wrote: post #378
sjg007 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines are in fact absolutely critical to not only prevent variants in immunocompromised patients but save their lives.

You seem to be a little confused about how vaccines work. While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, vaccines aren't very effective in immunocompromised patients. Even those who are vaccinated are at risk of persistent infections (depending on their specific medical condition).

I think their point was that you need to have EVERYONE vaccinated in order to reduce spread and protect people for whom vaccines are ineffective.

Re: Update on Omicron

#422

Post by Nursie »

HanShotFirst wrote: post #411
syshum wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh yes, lets blame capitalism for all things. You do realize that capitalism created the vaccine in the first place? That with out capitalism you would have no vaccine to complain about people refusing to take? I really am tried to seeing capitalism blamed on all the worlds problem when it has been capitalism more than anything else that has brought both peace and prosperity to the world

I was shocked to discover, several months after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were approved in America and trumpeted as proof of the speed and efficacy of our modern, capitalist medical system... that the Sinopharm and Sputnik V vaccines were both released much earlier, and they actually work very well.

Do we know how well they work yet, really? (Genuine question)

They were released earlier, though I got the impression they were released really without very much phase 2/3 testing at all. If you think the anti-vax folks are having a field day with the current western vaccines being given special accelerated roll-out...

Re: Update on Omicron

#423

Post by nimbleal »

sneak wrote: post #414
curmudgeon22 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study says much less than 71% reduction, 25% of vaccinated and 38% of unvaccinated people got Covid when living with an infected person. https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2638

35% reduction is still pretty good.

The question is — is it significant enough for:

a) eradication to be a possibility (intuitively, it would seem not); or, failing that

b) to lower the possibility of novel mutations emerging to a negligible level (I don’t have the knowledge to answer, so this is a genuine question, but again intuition would suggest not)

if, say, 99% of the population is vaccinated.

Re: Update on Omicron

#424

Post by nradov »

noahmasur wrote: post #421
nradov wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be a little confused about how vaccines work. While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, vaccines aren't very effective in immunocompromised patients. Even those who are vaccinated are at risk of persistent infections (depending on their specific medical condition).

I think their point was that you need to have EVERYONE vaccinated in order to reduce spread and protect people for whom vaccines are ineffective.

I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, but the virus is so contagious that there will be no significant protection for those whom the vaccines are ineffective.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

Re: Update on Omicron

#425

Post by sjg007 »

nradov wrote: post #378
sjg007 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccines are in fact absolutely critical to not only prevent variants in immunocompromised patients but save their lives.

You seem to be a little confused about how vaccines work. While I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated, vaccines aren't very effective in immunocompromised patients. Even those who are vaccinated are at risk of persistent infections (depending on their specific medical condition).

It is you who is confused. Immunecompromisation is not 100%.

Re: Update on Omicron

#426

Post by aaron695 »

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’…

It's well know in South Africa they turning away vaccines because they have more than they need.

So what's your conspiracy here?

You might have a legitimate theory but you need to state what it is.

Where in Africa did this come from were they can't afford vaccines?

Some African country's that had to send vaccines back or destroy them - https://www.bbc.com/news/56940657

Re: Update on Omicron

#427

Post by meej »

mattrighetti wrote: post #234
ant6n wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is garbage, full of randomly picked data points, not accounting for other variables, blatant misinterpretations and convenient omissions. Anti-vaxxers love posting it.

Can you elaborate more on that? Legitimate question, I came across this a couple days ago on some other thread here on HN.

Lots of criticism collated at the article's PubPeer page:

https://pubpeer.com/publications/693A0D3B374ACED0103ADDEA0D9...

The PubPeer browser extension is worthwhile: https://pubpeer.com/static/extensions

Re: Update on Omicron

#428

Post by adolph »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #132
adolph wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect this to be the case since decreased severity is associated with higher virus reproduction. The main question becomes second order effects.

Not true I'm afraid. Of course, if a virus killed you before you had a chance to pass it on then yes - but most viruses (including SARS-CoV-2) kill you slowly enough to have plenty of opportunity to propagate, there is no selection pressure to be less deadly. To my knowledge, we have no evidence that any human virus has evolved to become less virulent (please furnish examples if I'm wrong!). Unfortunately this common…

I looked up Ebola to see if it has changed over time [0] and it looks like nada, since outbreaks are generally zoonotic, which means that the viral mutation-selection happens outside humans. Of note is Ebola's relation to Marburg, which was imported to Europe with Uganda-sourced lab monkeys.

Two large outbreaks that occurred simultaneously in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1967, led to the initial recognition of the disease. The outbreak was associated with laboratory work using African green monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops) imported from Uganda. Subsequently, outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa (in a person with recent travel history to Zimbabwe) and Uganda. In 2008, two independent cases were reported in travellers who had visited a cave inhabited by Rousettus bat colonies in Uganda. [1]

0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4642951/

1. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/marburg-vir...

Re: Update on Omicron

#430

Post by dnautics »

GuB-42 wrote: post #362
easytiger wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Delta was simultaneously more infectious and more deadly than the original variant. That's not my understanding

Delta is less deadly because more people have some immunity, either because of vaccination or because they have already been infected. Also it came late in the game, and many of the people who are the most at risk are already dead. Treatment has improved too. So the virus itself isn't less deadly, it is just that we are better prepared.

the relative deadliness of delta... we'll just not ever really know. Though IIRC, some early surveillance with all the controls (only looking at unvaccinated, etc) suggested that it was LESS deadly for the elderly, more deadly for other age groups, net less deadly.
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