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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

#471

Post by HPsquared »

random314 wrote: post #320
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realise that mutation is not something the species can consciously control? How could the virus have mutated to become milder to suit the social response if the society, as it stands today, is continuing to do what they previously did..?

The lockdown prevents severe mutations from replicating because of lockdowns. Milder mutations don't result in lockdowns hence ...

It's true on an individual level too: someone who is very sick will stay at home, but someone with a mild head cold will still go out.

There's going to be a negative correlation between severity and something like "velocity" of infected persons.

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

#472

Post by lb0 »

lovecg wrote: post #354
random314 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lockdown prevents severe mutations from replicating because of lockdowns. Milder mutations don't result in lockdowns hence ...

But has this been true in practice? Was any variant successfully stopped with lockdowns? I suppose hypothetically if there’s a new strain with like a 10% fatality rate there will be new extreme measures where that could be the case, but it hasn’t happened yet. Even the extreme early 2020 measures failed to stop the virus.

Which lockdowns in our hemisphere had the goal of stopping the virus? All I know about (or have been part of) never stated that goal, only goal was to break waves and avoid overload of health care systems, which most at least helped with.

And then it goes on because measures are reduced, and zero-covid never was a goal... would even go so far that some few countries pretty successfully did zero-covid strategies and stopped their virus, though sure, that is a pretty futile thing if the world is not "globally" doing this and you are likely not isolating forever/completely - so we just start to live with it.

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

#473

Post by aftbit »

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…

I was with you for the first paragraph, but the second makes a number of concrete statements about the virus that are contrary to what I've heard elsewhere, so I'd second the ask for sources.

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

#474

Post by mikeyouse »

defaultprimate wrote: post #450
mikeyouse wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should perhaps read the studies you've linked a bit closer? When mentioned (as several of them are explicitly about masks in non-healthcare settings) - they all advocate for universal masking in healthcare settings specifically to limit the spread of Covid... > Although more research on universal masking in heath settings is needed, it is the expert opinion of the majority (79%) of WHO COVID-19 IPC GDG members th…

Opinions not supported by empirical evidence are not opinions worth listening to. "Experts" supported eugenics, antibacterial soap, breakfast cereal, the food pyramid, lobotomies, and all kinds of other things on the basis of popular "consensus"

See now you've gone and boxed yourself into the typical HN corner...

The people making those recommendations are experts in the field and have all read the relevant research. Weighting the good studies vs. the bad ones, measuring evidence, etc. They literally exist to give guidance on world health matters based on the spectrum of results from all these different researchers.

And here you are, telling me that in your opinion, we should ignore their assessment and only trust these few specific papers that you choose to emphasize. (At least you've stopped advocating for ivermectin now?)

A bit of a paradox to get people to rely on your opinion when you've previously said we shouldn't rely on opinions isn't it? Or is it just that you don't like the WHO's opinion on World Health issues because they might be in the pocket of "big surgical mask".

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

#475

Post by alex-korr »

Prediction - nerds will drum up any FUD related to omicron to postpone return to the office. I am seeing it in my company already - in the today's tech virtual townhall "omicron is going to hit hard, so why go back to the office in Jan" was the most upvoted comment in the stream.

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

#476

Post by johnchristopher »

roody15 wrote: post #175

This is honesty good news. The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear train running full steam. A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world.

> A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world.

No. Covid reeinfects. There's only a short-lived immunity. Covid is not a cold. If it doesn't get your the first or the second or the third time it will get you the 15th time.

Long term damage is not getting enough attention.

In decades maybe we get a mild covid.

> Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear train running full steam.

And they should. 2 years in and in a month we are back to 2020 measures and public health policies have barely improved.

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

#477

Post by sangnoir »

eloff wrote: post #442
roody15 wrote: post #175

This is honesty good news. The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear train running full steam. A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world.

Agreed. I found out about this early perhaps due to my South African family who sent me this doctors analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vI4XczqZ8 It could be excellent news. It sounds more virulent than delta, so should displace it given enough time, and much less dangerous. If this holds up, countries are doing the exact wrong thing by banning travel from South Africa. The thing to do would be to open trave…

> The sooner you replace delta with omicron in a country, should this continue to hold up, the better.

You think you want that, but this also increases the chances of Omicron evolving into something worse, like picking up genetic fragments from a haemorrhagic virus, or being able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

The 2nd wave of the Spanish flu was deadlier than the first: being infected by an earlier variant doesn't automatically make one immune from subsequent variants, especially when given maximum genetic resources and time to work with by letting it run rampant. The ideal scenario would be making COVID extinct ASAP.

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

#478

Post by spookthesunset »

sjg007 wrote: post #201
wonderwonder wrote: post #98

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…

Just wear a mask in indoor public places until the pandemic is over.

> Just wear a mask in indoor public places until the pandemic is over.

I'm fully vaccinated, so why should I? And when will the pandemic "be over"? Covid is here forever and ever. As long as we keep testing at the level we do, we will always find new variants and always see "spikes" of cases every single winter.

When, specifically, do the states with mask mandates remove them? Why not today? What makes a month better? Or a year? Or never?

Pushing for masks at this stage is arguing we wear masks forever. That isn't a world I care to live in.

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

#480

Post by tehjoker »

stickfigure wrote: post #358
chimprich wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world. There is absolutely no evidence for this variant being less pathogenic. It is quite likely that the milder outcomes observed with this variant so far are because of immunity generated by vaccines and prior infections. The idea that this will make vaccines less essential is a fanta…

It is the only endgame. The covid virus is not going away. Even if everyone on the planet suddenly got vaccinated simultaneously, the virus has an animal reservoir. Good news, selection pressure is for more-contagious and less-deadly. It will happen eventually, and then covid will be just another common cold.

selection pressure is for increasing reproduction. covid spreads before it kills. unless we get radically depopulated this pressure is nonexistant
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