Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 1001 posts

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#21

Post by boringg »

I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve?

I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while this variant might be much more effective at spreading and hopefully less severe in its disease - are we not just making a massive breeding ground for the variant after this one that could potentially be as quick spreading but with a greater severity of disease?

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#23

Post by rich_sasha »

dsizzle wrote: post #16
vkou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second infections, on average, have slightly worse outcomes then first infections among the unvaccinated. https://jim.bmj.com/content/69/6/1253 It's a small sample, but it was done on data available in 2020, which was before vaccines were available.

That link shows most (69%) have similar outcomes. 68.8% -- 19% had worse symptoms and 12.5% had milder symptoms. Small sample size, but even similar result is somewhat surprising -- I would've thought the 2nd infection would be weaker.

Worth bearing in mind, 19% -> 3 patients, 12.5% -> 2 patients.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#24

Post by [deleted] »

richardatlarge wrote: post #7
umpalumpaaa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is lower because it is the second infection some had.

Wouldn’t that be inconsistent with the other, related data: Quote: “National data show an exponential increase in both new infections and test positivity rates during the first three weeks of this wave, indicating a highly transmissible variant with rapid community spread of infection.”

[deleted]

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#25

Post by simonh »

raphaelj wrote: post #14
richardatlarge wrote: post #2

Quote: The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases, of which 78,000 were attributed to omicron, showed that risk of hospital admissions among adults who contracted covid-19 was 29 percent lower than in the initial pandemic wave that emerged in March 2020.

Could it be because we just got slightly better at treating Covid before hospitalization?

How do we treat Covid before hospitalisation? I just caught it at the weekend and feeling pretty crappy. I'm not aware of any particular treatment I should be taking.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#26

Post by gjsman-1000 »

boringg wrote: post #21

I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve? I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while t…

From what I know as not being a professional doctor, I would say that it appears to me that viruses get less dangerous over time, not more dangerous. This appears to be because viruses that are overly dangerous kill off their hosts too quickly, limiting their ability to spread, whereas the milder forms don't kill their hosts as easily and spread more broadly, building immunity against the stronger variants over time.

Edit: The result of this, if you look at previous diseases that have plagued humanity (see Black Death), is a high initial death count when the virus breaks out, but the death rate declines as the milder variants spread and people survive them, building immunity to stronger versions, until eventually the virus mostly disappears.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#28

Post by loup-vaillant »

boringg wrote: post #21

I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve? I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while t…

I’ve heard that it depends on the virus. Some become less severe as they become more contagious, but sometimes their severity stays the same.

Naively, you’d think selection pressure would decrease severity, because severity is not how viruses spread. However, if (some of) the same mechanisms that ar causing the virus to spread better are also responsible for (some of) its severity, then things may not really get better over time —unless our immune systems themselves adapt, but that generally requires a first infection…

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#29

Post by moreira »

boringg wrote: post #21

I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve? I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while t…

You are right about the trade-off: A more infectious, less deadly virus is the natural evolutionary path for them.

But about the breeding ground, not really: If one day some super deadly variant evolves, it's not popping up in all of the infected hosts at the same time. It'd still need to infect everyone from scratch, and since we all have our guard up right now, it'd definitely have an incredibly hard time doing so.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#30

Post by dsizzle »

rich_sasha wrote: post #23
dsizzle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link shows most (69%) have similar outcomes. 68.8% -- 19% had worse symptoms and 12.5% had milder symptoms. Small sample size, but even similar result is somewhat surprising -- I would've thought the 2nd infection would be weaker.

Worth bearing in mind, 19% -> 3 patients, 12.5% -> 2 patients.

Indeed, small sample size!
Post reply on HN