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

51–60 of 1001 posts

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

#51

Post by clashmoore »

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 can't find the excerpt, but I read "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History" by John M. Barry during this pandemic. It was an okay read if you're looking for something to pass the time.

There was a passage that suggested that virus evolutions happens all the time which sometimes gives us a super severe strain. But usually these super sever strains don't evolve into even more severe strains - generally they evolve back towards the "baseline" severity and the severe strain burns itself out.

From that, I had hope that the Delta variant of COVID was one of these outlier super severe strains and that all subsequent evolutions would fall back but it's not looking like that is the case when omicron was found.

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

#52

Post by kiba »

ljm wrote: post #42
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

> COVID clearly isn't going away at this point, so by all means try to replace it with something weaker! Probably naive to think we could totally eradicate it within a couple of years, particularly as far as vaccine fearmongering is concerned. Would be nice to see it join Smallpox and Polio though. That said, we've accepted an annual winter uptick in flu infections and we just tell people most vulnerable to get their…

That said, we've accepted an annual winter uptick in flu infections and we just tell people most vulnerable to get their yearly flu jab; less vulnerable folks can stay at home for a bit and manage the symptoms. If that's what we have to do for covid every winter then so be it.

Accepted? I would call that normalizing as well. According to an estimate, about 290,000 to 650,000 globally died of the flu each year.[1]

Normalization means it's a problem out of mind out of sight. We stop demanding these problems to be solved.

1. https://www.who.int/news/item/13-12-2017-up-to-650-000-peopl...

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

#53

Post by wokwokwok »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19
ufo wrote: post #13

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a…

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

Wanting something to be true does not make it true.

Even if it turns up to actually be true, the fact that so many people want it to be true is an excellent reason to be cautious in how you look at things here, because that is causing a lot of people to say things that haven’t been proven to be true.

The evidence so far looks like cause to be cautiously optimistic, but when the people giving out that evidence say “it’s too soon to be sure”, then pay attention.

It’s too soon to be sure.

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

#54

Post by tgv »

listless wrote: post #40
zzzeek wrote: post #27

cue the "it's just the flu!" army. on this end, I do not want covid at all, straight up. I will keep wearing my N95 to all the dirty looks I keep getting and boost as much as the boosts are there.

I think you should plan on getting it at some point. That’s what endemic means and that’s where we are. You’re just prolonging the inevitable.

That would not have been a particularly good advice in times of polio.

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

#55

Post by croes »

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.”

Maybe "new infection" doesn't mean first infection.

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

#56

Post by capdeck »

ljm wrote: post #42
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

> COVID clearly isn't going away at this point, so by all means try to replace it with something weaker! Probably naive to think we could totally eradicate it within a couple of years, particularly as far as vaccine fearmongering is concerned. Would be nice to see it join Smallpox and Polio though. That said, we've accepted an annual winter uptick in flu infections and we just tell people most vulnerable to get their…

> I would still call that a victory overall.

Humanity declared victory over every single pathogen to date (eradicated, contained or seasonal) because we are still here and thriving. We should go on with our lives.

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

#57

Post by simonh »

lanevorockz wrote: post #33
ufo wrote: post #13

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a…

You can easily disprove your theory by using the number of vaccinated vs unvaccinated that were exposed. We are talking about severity and not spread, that is easily done.

It's not the commenter's theory, it's the theory proposed in the article itself and that the commenter quoted. It's somewhat possible to account for the vaccination rate, but not really for resistance due to prior exposure because there are so many unknown variables in that.

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

#58

Post by akamaka »

croes wrote: post #50
bognition wrote: post #9

There are a few important bits here: First: "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." and second: "At the same time, the vaccine may offer 70 perce…

Don't forget this part: "South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection" So it could simply be that the mild cases were previously infected, what happens to an unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

South Africa’s excess deaths amount to 1 out of every 200 people. The most vulnerable have already been removed from the sample set.

I’m going to wait for severity data from where I live, because that’s what matters.

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

#59

Post by ___q »

croes wrote: post #50
bognition wrote: post #9

There are a few important bits here: First: "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." and second: "At the same time, the vaccine may offer 70 perce…

Don't forget this part: "South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection" So it could simply be that the mild cases were previously infected, what happens to an unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

> unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

No it's not, the study specifically mentions "the relative reduction of risk conferred by prior proven COVID-19 infection"

https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

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

#60

Post by panarky »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19
ufo wrote: post #13

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a…

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this…

> a little optimistic?

Sure, for this immediate wave [more transmissible less virulent] is better than [more transmissible more virulent].

But that's awfully myopic. What happens after that?

Since mutation rate is a function of the number of viral particles, and more transmission means many more hosts incubating many more particles, we should expect to see more new variants, faster.

So the probability just went up that we'll get a new wave of a new variant that's [more transmissible more virulent] and will kill 10x more people than alpha through omicron will.

That's a probability and not a certainty, but life is probabilistic and our risk level just went up a lot.

Post reply on HN