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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

#571

Post by singingfish »

renaudg wrote: post #370
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.

> The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. No, this scenario wouldn't be good news at all. Firstly, a marginally lower case fatality rate is a linear improvement, whereas much higher transmissibility is an exponential worsening. In other words, the reduced risk of an infected person getting into hospital is dwarfed by the exponential inc…

Yep, the result of a large number multiplied by a small number is still a large number. It's definitely a worry.

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

#572

Post by jgalt212 »

renaudg wrote: post #370
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.

> The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. No, this scenario wouldn't be good news at all. Firstly, a marginally lower case fatality rate is a linear improvement, whereas much higher transmissibility is an exponential worsening. In other words, the reduced risk of an infected person getting into hospital is dwarfed by the exponential inc…

> Firstly, a marginally lower case fatality rate is a linear improvement, whereas much higher transmissibility is an exponential worsening.

With the current data available from SA, EU, and UK, the CFR has not been shown to be marginally lower, but dramatically lower. Things could change, of course, but right now the first part of your statement is really the case (as observed).

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

#573

Post by inciampati »

GeekyBear wrote: post #339
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big question is whether the disease is genuinely milder, or whether the mild cases are just a consequence of the virus infecting people who are partially immune (due to the immune escape properties). We’ll learn the answer in a few weeks when the strain has had a chance to infect the old and unwell and we will see if the hospitalizations and deaths increase.

>The big question is whether the disease is genuinely milder, or whether the mild cases are just a consequence of the virus infecting people who are partially immune The initial data says that even though South Africa has a much lower vaccination rate, omicron is mild. From today: > lack of high death and hospitalization rates, despite the fact that Omicron has spread at breakneck speed across the country and account…

The lower vaccination rate is more than offset by the high rate of prior infection. This might also mean that omicron is mild if you have been previously infected. Populations with high vaccination rates and low infection rates might be at risk. Or they could be fine. We can't extrapolate to them from the situation in SA.

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

#574

Post by NicoJuicy »

megablast wrote: post #256
NicoJuicy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to what I heard through the Covid update of work. Omicron settles more in the nose and not as much in the long ( their source was a doctor). Although it's too early to be sure, it would explain both an increased transmissibility and a milder variant.

You understand that what you said is pure nonsense right?

Based on? The second part seems logical tbh and the first part actually did happen ( 1200 employees and a decent company, so I doubt their would be lies. We're no better.com ).

Also, it is similar enough to what i heard before from a conference about covid previous year.

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

#575

Post by vmception »

SergeAx wrote: post #566
vmception wrote: post #548

Out of curiosity, do we really require these studies? Like it is good to have more and more sources, but wouldn't the expected outcome to be the following: - vaccines that replicated the spike protein will be less effective since omicron has a modified spike protein, because the immune system only was trained to notice the spike protein and not the payload - naturally induced immunity from prior exposure to Sars-Cov-…

Yes, we need to know how severe the illness from this variant is. It was never a question of transmission. When we got news from Norway where 120 vaccinated negative tested people came into the restaurant for a couple of hours and at least 60 of them came out with positive omicron test - it became clear that we are fucked. Also, news from South Africa, where two people were quarantined in a hotel their rooms was acro…

Also meaning natural immunity faster, hopefully an underwhelming hospital load.

Someone needs to check if masks and cloths over nose and face still have moderate effectiveness in densely populated areas.

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

#576

Post by drited »

kansface wrote: post #514
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…

I don't understand this study. Why not compare the hospitalization/fatality rates between _current_ omicron/delta infections between similar cohorts? Comparing to an earlier wave is hopelessly confounded on prior infections in the intervening time and similarly, on the most susceptible having already been killed off. Maybe they did what I'm suggesting and its mostly just bad reporting? edit from the summary :-/ : Vac…

Thank you for removing the uncertainty on that! Agreed regarding the unspecific reporting. Seemed to me to be one of those areas where the author assumed you'd assume... I dislike that as it introduces the possibility of misinterpretation.

Now the next question is what is the percentage reduction in deaths for Omicron vs prior variants. It seems like more than the 29 percent reduction in hospitalisation given the first death from Omicron was reported in Britain last week right?

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

#577

Post by roenxi »

oceanplexian wrote: post #468
renaudg wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. No, this scenario wouldn't be good news at all. Firstly, a marginally lower case fatality rate is a linear improvement, whereas much higher transmissibility is an exponential worsening. In other words, the reduced risk of an infected person getting into hospital is dwarfed by the exponential inc…

The thing is, vaccines were never advertised as tools to prevent infection. The story has always been that it reduces symptoms and hospitalization, so there are plenty of opportunities for the disease to get “tickets” in the evolution lottery. Between that, the animal reservoirs (COVID can spread to different species), and the millions of people in undeveloped countries who will never get a vax, COVID was guaranteed…

> The thing is, vaccines were never advertised as tools to prevent infection.

A lot of people believed they were. I've spent some time arguing with people that the punishments for not taking the vaccine were too extreme, and that government-supported firing of people from their jobs was a bad idea.

It was extremely common for people to argue that the vaccine would cut down on transmission (which is basically saying infection) and end the pandemic. Without that pillar it gets quite hard to justify the discrimination against unvaccinated people in Australia. Not sure about the rest of the world but I assume there is a similar story.

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

#578

Post by ADSSDA »

native_samples wrote: post #378
romwell wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is that the vaccine programme has now completely failed You mean succeeded ? As in, prevented many people from dying, and forced the virus to mutate into Omicron, which is far less dangerous.

Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all. As for the vaccines forcing mutation, SA is only 25% vaccinated so that doesn't work. Have the vaccines succeeded in preventing many people from dying? That is something for history to judge. There just isn't good enough data on vaccine deaths to judge t…

> Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all.

It's disappointing to see complete lies like this on HN. Vaccines have been, and remain, incredibly effective in preventing hospitalization/death, even without a booster (although everyone should also get their booster).

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

#579

Post by chiefalchemist »

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.

Perhaps. But keep in mind, the world isn't suffering equally.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-heal...

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

#580

Post by heavyset_go »

hpoe wrote: post #530
oceanplexian wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, vaccines were never advertised as tools to prevent infection. The story has always been that it reduces symptoms and hospitalization, so there are plenty of opportunities for the disease to get “tickets” in the evolution lottery. Between that, the animal reservoirs (COVID can spread to different species), and the millions of people in undeveloped countries who will never get a vax, COVID was guaranteed…

I've heard that but then why do people say we need to get vaccinated to protect the most vulnerable members of society if the vaccine isn't actually slowing the spread and doesn't prevent infection? EDIT: To be clear I already had COVID and didn't have any serious symptoms so the argument about a hospital bed doesn't necessarily apply to me. Beyond that I actually got vaccinated, my question centers around the dispar…

If you're vaccinated and become infected, you will have less of a viral load, and thus will spread less viral particles to others. The duration of infection will also be much shorter, thus lessening the time you can spread the infection to others. The vaccine also prevents some, but not all, infections in the first place.

You're also less likely to take up a hospital bed that someone who is more vulnerable than you needs.

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