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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

#451

Post by thedorkknight »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #427
ASinclair wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good news, selection pressure is for more-contagious and less-deadly What selection pressure exists to make it less-deadly? It takes weeks for the virus to kill people and they are most infectious early on.

The same selection pressure that applies to every other disease. Symptoms make you less likely to spread. Fatalities make you much less likely to spread. Most of the diseases you carry are completely asymptomatic. This is why island populations all get sick when a ship comes in.

Don't most covid deaths happen after you're no longer infectious? I thought a lot of that was from the cytokine storm.

But to the other commenter's point, if omicron DID get a more deadly variant that kills you after you've already infected other people due to presymptomatic spread, then why would that variant be likely to die out? It's already reproduced before killing the host

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

#452

Post by daxfohl »

daxfohl wrote: post #282
cableshaft wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that's normally true, but there's not a ton of lockdowns with even Delta right now, so while I agree that it probably isn't going to get worse , there's still not a ton of pressure from social response as it is right now for it to get milder (maybe you could argue pressure from vaccines I guess).

Yeah I think we can learn what society thinks is acceptable risk just by looking at death counts over the last two years. They've pretty much leveled out. So as the virus mutates into less (or more) harmful variations, we'll see the world react less (or more) strictly, but overall death count will remain stable.

Presumably the steady state will happen after the virus mutates into a less dangerous variant (as infecting more people will be evolutionarily advantageous for the virus), and eventually we all get it and build up antibodies, at which point its virulence further subsides.

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

#453

Post by dragontamer »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #434
dragontamer wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cowpox is a different disease That conferred immunity to smallpox. Which makes it about as "different" as Omicron is to Delta or COVID19. In any case, Cowpox is case-positive proof of animal reservoirs of smallpox.

> Which makes it about as "different" as Omicron is to Delta or COVID19. Sure, that's fair. > In any case, Cowpox is case-positive proof of animal reservoirs of smallpox. Huh? No, it isn't.

Fine.

UK eradicated Rabies. I'm pretty sure we all agree Rabies has substantial animal reservoirs, right?

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

#455

Post by lb0 »

chimprich wrote: post #413
BoxOfRain wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear training running full steam. Enragement is engagement, and how better to enrage people than scaring everyone out of their wits and politicising everything as far as humanly possible? I'm certainly no COVID denier nor vaccine sceptic, though to me it's astonishing how little discussion has happened around the fact that everyone from some randomer's blog to…

The evidence of the past year or two suggests otherwise. For the first few months of 2020, media outlets were constantly downplaying the threat of pandemic. They consistently under-reported the risk. "Should we be worried? No! The threat is remote!" What also sells papers (or attracts eyeballs) is giving people an impression of superiority: "look at all those ridiculous other people panicking!" There's also the gener…

I agree, its strange the different bubbles we live in, but none of my news sources didn't have the "Omicron likely weaker" headline?!

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

#456

Post by makomk »

dragontamer wrote: post #430
thaumasiotes wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know that Smallpox was in cows (aka: Cowpox), right? It seems unlikely that many cows caught smallpox, given the prevalence of cowpox. Cowpox is a different disease, and was the first vaccine, after which the very concept of "vaccination" is named. Milkmaids had long been known for their immunity to smallpox. If smallpox had been in cows, milkmaids would have been known for universal smallpox exposure instead.…

> Cowpox is a different disease That conferred immunity to smallpox. Which makes it about as "different" as Omicron is to Delta or COVID19. In any case, Cowpox is case-positive proof of animal reservoirs of smallpox.

Cowpox produced strong enough immunity to smallpox that a vaccine likely derived from it completely wiped smallpox off the planet, but it's very much not the same disease - cowpox doesn't spread effectively in humans and is much less deadly. There's just really good cross-immunity between the two that made vaccination possible using 18th-century technology and understanding of science, even though their last common ancestor seems to be way back in prehistory.

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

#457

Post by barbazoo »

the_doctah wrote: post #420
barbazoo wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how we often assume every single word someone says is carefully chosen to 100% reflect what one wants to communicate.

For press releases like this, they damn well should be.

> "Sadly at least one patient has now been confirmed to have died with Omicron," Johnson told reporters at a vaccination centre in London.

This wasn't a press release fyi.

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

#458

Post by nyokodo »

Sharlin wrote: post #61
nyokodo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. All viruses are severe if you have no immune protection from them. A small number of people die from the cold every year. The only thing that matters is how severe the infection is given the immunity you have.

Well, yes, but if you’re naively comparing the severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges because the degree of immunization in the population is not the same, even if you only consider non-vaccinated people.

> severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges

Comparing the severity of the viral strains on some objective scale, if that’s even possible, is at best an academic curiosity. Severity comparisons only really matter in giving us an accurate idea of how likely severe illness and death will be so that individuals, families, and public health officials can make any changes necessary.

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

#459

Post by pfisch »

clairity wrote: post #433
BoxOfRain wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear training running full steam. Enragement is engagement, and how better to enrage people than scaring everyone out of their wits and politicising everything as far as humanly possible? I'm certainly no COVID denier nor vaccine sceptic, though to me it's astonishing how little discussion has happened around the fact that everyone from some randomer's blog to…

it’s worth always keeping in mind that the only dichotomy that matters in political economies is that between the wealthy and powerful and everyone else, not left-right, black-white, east-west, socialist-capitalist, or anything else. it’s been this way for all of human history past and will likely be so for the rest of it too. that’s a sober position to take, not a cynical one, as some might argue. the more dynamic o…

"the only dichotomy that matters in political economies is that between the wealthy and powerful and everyone else"

I always think of this as putting on different pairs of glasses to see the world through different lenses. That is one lens. left-right is another lens.

There is no "the only lens that matters". There are many lenses which have different degrees of predictive power depending on what you are observing. You don't use a microscope to look at the stars.

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

#460

Post by unmole »

selectodude wrote: post #446
unmole wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you seen the charts for literally the rest of the world? I just did. There are no discernable spikes coinciding with cold weather for India, Brazil, the UK or Russia.

I decided to check Brazil really quickly and there's a very steep drop off once summer hit. I don't even need to bother with the UK.

The steep drop off starts of in July which in Brazil is winter.
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