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Update on Omicron

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Re: Update on Omicron

#451

Post by bluGill »

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.

All of those vaccines were created within weeks of the genetic sequence being released. The release dates you are referring to is only about regulatory oversight. Countries like the US and EU (and a long list of others) where Pfizer and Moderna targeted their sales are very careful to not allow the release of anything until they have evidence it works and is safe. For Sputnik V they released it before being sure it worked - which allowed them to release much faster, but there is a reason the rest of the world cried foul - even countries with few regulations didn't allow it to be used until more study was done - study that takes time.

Re: Update on Omicron

#452

Post by supernovae »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #241
ant6n wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There do exist viruses that have been virtually eradicated with vaccines, even if they weren't 100% effective (cf Polio). We probably won't eradicate Corona with the first gen vaccines, but that isn't the point anyway. The point ist that we should reduce it enough so that mutations are less likely.

Polio was a different kind of virus, though, with a different kind of vaccine. We never got a vaccine for other coronaviruses either, it's unlikely that we will get it for this. Also, there is solid literature on the fact that vaccines during an epidemic cause stress that induces the virus to mutate. https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org

None of Geerts papers are peer reviewed or based on scientific research/data.

Stress doesn't cause mutations. Mutations happen because of genetics and whatever mutations increase their suvival end up being the mutations prevelent in society.

What viruses need though are willing hosts who aren't vaccinated who carry the virus, allow it to thrive and mutate and more importantly - those who spread it.

Blaming vaccinations is like blaming immune systems when the real issue is people who carry the disease and allow it to continue to spread.

Re: Update on Omicron

#453

Post by karlicoss »

tshaddox wrote: post #391
rajup wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly agree, but have you considered that perhaps falling sick once in a while allows your immune system to adapt and become more stronger? I mean vaccines have been around for all of 100-200 years...

The only reason to want your immune system to be stronger is to not get sick, right? I certainly wouldn’t choose to get sick once a month in order to have a super mega strong immune system, for example. The desired end goal is to get sick less often! In certain cases it may be that getting a mild infection does help prevent later more serious infections, but AFAIK those cases are generally getting infected as an infa…

afaiu, in theory, immunity acquired through infection can be stronger than the one from vaccination. E.g. vaccination might prime your body for just one protein, whereas an infection would prime for several.

But it's not universally true, varies for different viruses, and also isn't fully understood whether it's the case for covid. So far seems like a safer and less miserable opinion to get vaccinated rather than get sick with covid.

Re: Update on Omicron

#454

Post by Eelongate »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #232
djbusby wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Denialism and lack of economic support.

It takes serious denialism to believe the covid vaccines are anywhere close to the effectiveness of polio vaccines.

Re: Update on Omicron

#455

Post by supernovae »

gotoeleven wrote: post #276
throwaway894345 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this—not only do we have the usual moral imperative to help others, but it’s actually in our primary interest. The US has actually done exceedingly well here, having delivered more donations than all other countries combined (not sure if this is still the case; I haven’t checked in a couple of months). But there’s still more work to do and other rich countries need to get on board quickly. Apropos of not…

Most third world countries don't have the infrastructure to reliably deliver refrigerated vaccines at scale. And they've got to deliver two doses, months apart. Its very "on brand" as the kids say now on twitter for NPR to platform a race-baiter though. The west, a product of mostly european people, came up with the vaccine but blah blah blah racism. Come up with your own vaccine then NPR race bait lady.

Nonsense. Africa is miles ahead of many countries because they have been frought with epidemics. The South African variant is only called south African because they have the technology to do genomics on the strain to identify that it has mutated and there is a new mutation running around.

Re: Update on Omicron

#456

Post by YZF »

anonnyj wrote: post #405
YZF wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are the fully vaccinated countries you're talking about here? Vaccines for kids 5-12 are just starting and even the countries with the most vaccine intake still have 10%-20% that won't take it. At any rate it's really enough to bring this to a low enough case per capita which generally the vaccines do help with. The less active cases the lower the number of random mutations.

2 more weeks to flatten the curve

nobody is enjoying this but:

- pseudo-science is not gonna help.

- we could be in a better place if we had the capacity to act as a group.

Where I live this was managed perhaps better than other places, not as well as it could have been.

Re: Update on Omicron

#457

Post by HanaShiratori »

nimbleal wrote: post #423
sneak wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't any kind of reduction be a good thing? Even if it just prevents severe illness / hospitalization by the stated amount I'd consider it a win.

Re: Update on Omicron

#458

Post by JamesBarney »

harry8 wrote: post #318
xg15 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but not the whole story unfortunately. While many African countries need more vaccines, South Africa was in the process of throttling shipments because less and less people were getting vaccinated. So the other big challenge is raising acceptance of the vaccines and fighting denialism.

Talking about vaccine hesitancy in Africa must be accompanied by why there's a certain amount of justification of it and it can be viewed as entirely rational, if also wholly undesirable. Included in that must be the USA's role in creating that problem. A couple of examples quickly turned up with a search engine of which there seem to be far, far too many. I can recall a few not here being reported over the past deca…

I would be surprised if this is the reason. The South African anti-vax arguments I've read were very similar to the anti-vax arguments I hear here.

None of them argued the vaccines they're receiving are an experimental vaccines, or that the vaccines are a trick. They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers.

Re: Update on Omicron

#459

Post by staticassertion »

logicchains wrote: post #446
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…

>Watching the people around me has stirred in me many new questions. Have you ever considered they might have a point? More and more data is coming out, like https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.107... , in the highest-impact cardiology journal, showing that the mRNA vaccines are not particularly "safe" by any reasonable interpretation of the word.

I don't read that as them not being safe. They're trying to explain why there's an increase in some symptoms, symptoms we already know about, post vaccine.

Sadly I can't dig too much into that paper because the page is being really buggy.

But having had three shots now and no symptoms I've stopped really caring much to hear any fear mongering. I'm a lot more concerned by new variants.

Re: Update on Omicron

#460

Post by karlicoss »

fastball wrote: post #447
asah wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-1, viruses are not sentient and are only given pressure to not kill their hosts if that reduces transmissability... which specifically doesn't apply for COVID, which is asymptomatically transmissable .

If you're dead you can't continue to transmit the virus, so lethality absolutely does decrease transmissibility. The fact that some people can be asymptomatic and contagious doesn't change that.

also if it was more deadly, presumably that would lead to people taking it more seriously.

E.g. HIV is asymptomatic for a long time, but is ultimately deadly, so people use condoms because of that (of course there are other STDs as well, but I feel like HIV plays the biggest role in condom use). If its effects were less serious, it would probably be far more widespread (e.g. like HPV).

With covid more deadlines would probably lead to people would using masks more often, taking rapid treats more often, etc.

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