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

washingtonpost.com

181–190 of 1001 posts

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

#181
post #71

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. You are forgetting about the most vulnerable group of all: immunosuppressed people. They cannot mount a sufficient immune response, in severe immunosuppression like after a transplant event months or years after.…

I live in a state where mask mandates are essentially gone. Very few people wear masks here and they are not required in schools so only ~5% of kids are wearing them at my children's elementary school. Everything seems pretty good so far, no marked rise in cases and almost no cases in my kids school over the last year, maybe 25 total, all mild. I am in no way saying masks don't work, in fact I think that they do. Wit…

> Would you be willing to accept mask mandates in perpetuity?

I think it depends on location. In key environments like public transport and supermarkets and other spaces that everyone needs to be able to access it seems reasonable to me that we might keep them for at least a 5-10 year horizon if that proves necessary. It just doesn't seem like a big deal to wear a mask, and it would cut down on the need for more restrictive measures like lockdowns.

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

#182
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…

If you want misleading titles, try this [0] from the Guardian. Every single other news outlet covering this study managed an accurate headline.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinat...

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

#183
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…

Technically anything is "possible" -- but what does the Bayesian weight of evidence say at this point?

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

#184
post #75
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…

What other target would be better for a sterilizing vaccine?

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

#185
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you attend the game if it were 11 people? Because that's what you do every time you drive. 11 crash fatalities per 100,000 people. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

Driving has benefits. Getting infected with COVID does not.

Except COVID is not the end goal here, it is living a full life in proximity to other human beings that comes with a risk of getting COVID. It is no different in purpose than driving for the most part.

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

#186
post #180
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spanish Flu was over a hundred years ago and hit the world the same way Covid did even though there was no McDonald's or obesity epidemic back then.

Yes but Spanish Flu was really really bad. Affected everyone. Covid is not the Spanish Flu or even the Flu. The flu kills children and is indiscriminate. 80% of hospitalizations and deaths from Covid are related to weight. We should have prioritized health and Vitamin D in April 2020. At that time it was clear it was mainly affecting overweight people. Of course even almost 2 years later people still don't think that…

There was a world war distracting resources.

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

#187
post #71

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. You are forgetting about the most vulnerable group of all: immunosuppressed people. They cannot mount a sufficient immune response, in severe immunosuppression like after a transplant event months or years after.…

I live in a state where mask mandates are essentially gone. Very few people wear masks here and they are not required in schools so only ~5% of kids are wearing them at my children's elementary school. Everything seems pretty good so far, no marked rise in cases and almost no cases in my kids school over the last year, maybe 25 total, all mild. I am in no way saying masks don't work, in fact I think that they do. Wit…

It's interesting how Scotland, which kept a mask mandate, and England, which dropped it, affected cases.

From start to end of October, cases per 100k, 7 day average

Glasgow -- 300->220

Edinburgh -- 210->250

Manchester -- 290->220

Birmingham -- 250->280

4 similar cities, two with mask mandates, two without.

And smaller ones

Aberdeen -- 267->330

Southampton -- 300->410

Perth -- 320->260

Hereford -- 290->580

So there may be something there, would need more data to really see, but it certainly isn't a glowing mandate for masks

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

#188
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is another problem of the modal Western approach. Few people have any knowledge of mitigating strategies or medications because we've moved so aggressively to eradicate discussion of those things.

We have entire industries and research institutions funded to the tune of billons of dollars doing exactly that, using the very latest technology and scientific techniques. If there were effective treatment strategies that were easily discoverable, It'd have been patented, clinically trialed and be available from a counter near you at an affordable price extremely quickly. If it was cheap or safe enough, whole foods and such places would have shelves full of it. Capitalism is pretty good at that sort of thing, just look at all the vaccines we got in less than a year.

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a state where mask mandates are essentially gone. Very few people wear masks here and they are not required in schools so only ~5% of kids are wearing them at my children's elementary school. Everything seems pretty good so far, no marked rise in cases and almost no cases in my kids school over the last year, maybe 25 total, all mild. I am in no way saying masks don't work, in fact I think that they do. Wit…

We are maybe a couple months from Pfizer's new antiviral becoming widely available, and it will probably work for immune compromised people. There's also a recent EUA for a long-acting antibody PrEP injection that should help immune compromised people avoid infection in the first place. Both of these may be widely available in the US quite soon.

This is a good response and I think would be something that should be taken into account. I am still not going to start masking again unless a much more severe variant rises but I can understand setting a firm deadline based on an emerging technologies. Issue is that there will never be a 100% solution and some states more willing than others to let mandates run forever. What happens if those emerging technologies are not as effective as hoped? It becomes a slippery slope with the deadline kicked down the road. Personally I think we are all going to get covid eventually in much the same way we all get the flu. Everyone that wanted to get vaccinated (in the US) and boosted has had a chance to do so now. Most Americans that want to avoid human contact can for the most part via amazon and food delivery services, work is obviously a different matter for most people. Perhaps I am selfish which I am open to, but at this point after having taken 3 shots and been very mask conscious for the first ~14 months I am tapped out and willing to roll the dice as the risk ratio seems relatively low to my age group and I have no pre-existing morbidities.

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

#190
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…

Additionally, the demographics of South Africa are different too. The median age is significantly lower than most Western countries.
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