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

washingtonpost.com

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

#101

Post by jodrellblank »

marpstar wrote: post #65
panarky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

It's a miracle that the human race has survived this long, and COVID is clearly not driving us to extinction.

Are you arguing the equivalent of "something increasing the chance of another world war is not a concern, because previous world wars clearly didn't drive humans to extinction"?

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

#102

Post by QuarterReptile »

jatone wrote: post #46
ljm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 havent seen any evidence covid is seasonal. it may become seasonal. but nothing in the past 2 years as indicated it is.

Just so other commenters can understand: are you saying that you haven't seen the charts with enormous spikes on them every time a place enters a cold season? Or that you find them to be uncompelling for some (as yet undisclosed) reason?

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

#103

Post by aantix »

jjk166 wrote: post #89
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…

Hoping it's mild is great. Betting your life it's mild is dumb.

243 deaths per 100,000 in the U.S. (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality).

The death distributions are very clear.

If you're healthy, betting that you would be OK is a very reasonable bet.

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

#104

Post by skeeter2020 »

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…

It's also early days for the new variant. I would love and do hope this is true, but it's previously take weeks and months to start seeing fatalities after the first reported cases, so it may be too early to make this statement yet; waiting for the law of big numbers to kic in.

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

#105

Post by sjwalter »

notreallyserio wrote: post #83
capdeck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In the mean time we should do whatever we can to avoid filling hospitals to capacity.

Sure, but hospitals are run at a level to hit peak capacity at the point when vitamin D deficiency peaks.

Here's LA County using overflow tents in 2018 because the flu season was particularly bad: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-2018...

So it's not like this is some new threat. "2 weeks to flatten the curve" came along with some understanding that hospitals would increase their resources. Instead, in many states, they've spent more time working out which unvaccinated staff to fire and how than they have increasing staffing levels.

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

#106

Post by QuarterReptile »

azekai wrote: post #75
ljm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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. We would have to completely redesign our current method of vaccination, then. We do not have a sterilizing vaccine for COVID (like we did for smallpox and polio). The current vaccines all use spike proteins to prepare a body…

Would someone who is flagging this comment please, instead, respond to it? If it is so trivially dismissed, please show the rest of us.

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

#107

Post by ed25519FUUU »

tgv wrote: post #54
listless wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People probably fear being paralyzed more than they fear death.

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

#108

Post by [deleted] »

rajin444 wrote: post #74
panarky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

How do you reconcile this with the human race existing for so long? I guess you could make the argument global travel has changed things, but I’m not sure.

[deleted]

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

#109

Post by tannisphere4 »

panarky wrote: post #91
34679 wrote: post #82

Omicron has been found in 38 countries and there are still no deaths caused by it. [1] The media are running with the story that the first death from Omicron just happened in the UK, but read Boris Johnson's quote: "Sadly at least one patient has now been confirmed to have died with Omicron," Johnson told reporters [2] This sounds batshit crazy, because it is, but in the UK, if you die from something unrelated while…

Do you have a source that says covid did not contribute to the death of the UK patient?

Before that data point resolves itself, remember that n=1 doesn't really support either meta-narrative. Not saying you are doing this, but I'm sure there are many who are preparing to both sharpen this data into a spear for the "other side", and at the same time, preparing a cognitive dissonance process to explain the data should it not support their meta-narrative.

The end result is discussion that advance little in the Shannon information sense, but maximally clarify every individuals social net.

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

#110

Post by brokensegue »

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…

The south African doctor had insufficient evidence to conclude it was "extremely mild". Waiting for more data was the right course.
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