Update on Omicron • Hacker News Board

Re: Update on Omicron

#741

Post by chimprich » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #708

chimprich wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> happy to be owned by others > continue locking themselves inside their homes This kind of melodramatic hyperbole makes it very hard to consider your argument seriously.

> > happy to be owned by others The poster I replied to made some weird "argument" about owning ourselves not helping anything. > > continue locking themselves inside their homes Not melodrama or hyperbole. Keep shutting yourself in if you are so petrified that you think everybody else must "wear masks and stay indoors if possible" in response to new covid variants as OP said. It's a great way to reduce contact and m…

> Not melodrama or hyperbole. Keep shutting yourself in if you are so petrified

You don't see the contradiction in what you have written here? You're trying to belittle people taking precautions by saying that they're "petrified". You're using emotive language to try to force through a weak argument.

Obviously you can't stay indoors all of the time. People need to get food, fix their houses, and so on. People who are especially vulnerable to the virus are the ones who have to leave their homes the most for essential medical care.

Re: Update on Omicron

#742

Post by Ambolia » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

I don't know, this variant sounds an excuse for the expected failure of the vaccination plan, now that cold weather and flu season is here it's will hard to keep pretending vaccines are leading us to any kind of long term victory.

Re: Update on Omicron

#743

Post by irthomasthomas » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

ryathal wrote: post #733

periheli0n wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloth masks may not help much to protect those who wear them, but they reduce the amount of aerosol they emit, and reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus.

Cloth masks become saturated and actually emit more and smaller particles.

My comment was flagged for pointing out the science says N95 is better than cloth masks. I don't get it.

Re: Update on Omicron

#744

Post by DeusExMachina » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

supernovae wrote: post #452

DeusExMachina wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vaccinatio…

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

They have an extensive list of peer reviewed studies from plenty of other scientists:

https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/blog/supportive...

Re: Update on Omicron

#745

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #228

Summary: PCR tests still work, certain therapies still work, and interestingly, they claim to already know that "Current vaccines remain effective against severe disease and death." while claiming to know basically nothing else (not even whether it is more transmissible).

We know from previous studies that T-cell immunity is much more resistant to mutation than antibodies. It's almost completely certain that vaccines will be effective against severe diseases and death.

Re: Update on Omicron

#746

Post by staticassertion » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

esyir wrote: post #540

staticassertion wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm in the opposite bucket regarding symptoms unfortunately. First shot gave somewhat unusual symptoms which were brushed off. Only after the left side of my face went numb after shot two did they consider allergic reaction. The side effects of the vaccines, while generally not that severe, are very real. Discounting them just because you were lucky isn't the best way to go about it imo. I'm not looking forward to th…

I'm not discounting the side effects, I'm saying they're very rare and don't personally impact me so I don't spend a lot of time harping on research.

Re: Update on Omicron

#747

Post by techdragon » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #705

techdragon wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years isn’t an inconceivable time to build additional hospital capacity and attempt efforts at preventing normal causes of medial and nursing school drop outs in order to bolster the number of adequately trained medical professionals available to staff those hospitals. In fact a lot of countries have an artificial cap on the number of doctors and nurses which is driven by various medical professional associations…

> Two years isn’t an inconceivable time to build additional hospital capacity The limiting factor is medical professionals, not adding buildings. You can't train a doctor in 2 years. > preventing normal causes of medial and nursing school drop outs in order to bolster the number of adequately trained medical professionals What's the drop-out rate? How would you "prevent" this? Do people drop out because they can't co…

I did mention the fact that in many countries the medical students are put through a course structure designed not just around individual achievement on simple academic competency, but aimed and structured sometimes explicitly capped to only graduate a fixed number of doctors. Many put forward justification for this such as “there aren’t enough placements in the field once they graduate” and other semi-valid arguments to put downward pressure on the number of doctors able to and willing to (many migrate to other non “doctor” fields after the first few years of medical school) finish a medical school education as a doctor capable of working with patients on the front line.

I’m well aware it’s not possible to train a decent doctor in two years, which is why my point was more that they could have applied positive pressure like merit based scholarship opportunities or any of a number of other ways to assist students in the second/third years of medical school to stay on track to graduate as doctors and nurses. The point is that there’s never been a shortage of people trying to become Doctors, we have social, educational and economic effects in play that limit the number of people that manage to get there all of which the governments around the world could have done things about.

Re: Update on Omicron

#748

Post by tpmx » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #251

evgen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842 where ‘[SA president] Cyril Ramaphosa said he was "deeply disappointed" by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted.’ Your country has a very low vaccination rate and you are ground zero for a new variant, but feel the need to be “deeply disappointed” that others trying to slow the spread slightly may impact your…

Since this was first detected in Botswana, we don't know where ground zero is. What we do know is that countries with good detection systems get punished and that such travel plans always have come way after the cat is out of the bag anyways.

Botswana got hit by both the EU and the US travel restrictions as well.

Re: Update on Omicron

#749

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

exdsq wrote: post #477

logicchains wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

This isn't a peer reviewed study, it's a submitted abstract. The sole name on the paper is someone who sells psudoscience plant-based debunked theories that the majority of our health issues come from lectins. He "authors papers" for Gwyneth Paltrow's weird publications. The guy sells supplements based on his scaremongering research to fringe-groups who like the idea of plant-based medicine, I don't trust his opinion…

Yep, whenever you see something that "just questions the medical science" getting heavily promoted, follow the money. You'll very likely eventually find the link to the sale of food supplements, essential oils, Homeopathy, Crystal Healing, cleansing and detox, or other "alternative medicines".

Re: Update on Omicron

#750

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

arbuge wrote: post #439

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’…

> 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’ll never get out of this. This isn't quite true. All epidemics come to an end eventually, vaccines or no vaccines. There were no vaccines to end the 1918 flu epidemic, but that one too died out just like all the ones before it i…

The 1918 flu epidemic arguably still persists to this day:

> What’s even more remarkable about the 1918 flu, say infectious disease experts, is that it never really went away. After infecting an estimated 500 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919 (a third of the global population), the H1N1 strain that caused the Spanish flu receded into the background and stuck around as the regular seasonal flu.

> But every so often, direct descendants of the 1918 flu combined with bird flu or swine flu to create powerful new pandemic strains, which is exactly what happened in 1957, 1968 and 2009. Those later flu outbreaks, all created in part by the 1918 virus, claimed millions of additional lives, earning the 1918 flu the odious title of “the mother of all pandemics.”

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/news/1918-...