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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

#721

Post by CountDrewku »

cipheredStones wrote: post #274
CountDrewku wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I will keep wearing my N95 to all the dirty looks I keep getting and boost as much as the boosts are there. The masks have never been about protecting yourself but have at it. I don't care what you do just stop forcing your attitude on everyone else. At this point you're just trying to make a statement, not protect anyone.

Cloth masks are somewhat effective at protecting those around you, but only slightly effective at protecting you; masks like the N95 do both quite effectively, if you wear them properly.

Almost no one is wearing any mask appropriately. Even the n95 needs to be changed more than daily. I highly doubt any decent percentage of people are doing that. At this point it's just a statement and nothing to do with protecting themselves or anyone else. Alternatively, they're suffering from psychosis.

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

#722

Post by jjk166 »

bink wrote: post #704
jjk166 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually in this case being approximately 18-24 months from the first wave, which coincidentally is very close to where we are in the current pandemic.

The Spanish Flu is a single data point. I wouldn't read too much into the 18-24 months stat.

The point isn't that Covid will be as fast as the Spanish Flu, it's that the Spanish Flu did not take a long time, and should not be dismissed as an example where it became milder eventually. In fact, we'd have to be quite lucky if covid became mild in the same time frame.

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

#723

Post by sjg007 »

mikem170 wrote: post #639
jat850 wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think with the majority of instances it's a matter of repeating what they've seen online somewhere, where it is nearly unilaterally presented in similar tone. Some cases are malicious intent I'm sure, but I wouldn't guess the most of them.

Seems some people have a genuine difference in the way they asses their risk. Some people are scared that there have been 800k+ deaths in the U.S. Others say that's only 1 in 400, mostly old and with commodities, and not that big a deal.

The sophomoric response would be the trope that teenagers always think they are invincible and it won’t happen to me. I think some people never grow out of that phase.

There is also something called the normalcy bias which has an interplay with psychology and risk assessments.

Something like 1 in 400 can easily become 1 in 200. At what point does the majority notice and act appropriately?

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

#724

Post by not2b »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #502
lovecg wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Was any variant successfully stopped with lockdowns? Statstically speaking, almost surely yes: with millions of infections there are thousands of variants, every day . If somebody was prevented from infecting somebody with their variant (as patient 0) technically we stopped variants with lockdown. Maybe they more favorable for us, maybe they were more dangerous from us.

The mu variant, which caused a lot of worry, went away. It apparently escaped vaccines better than delta but spread much more slowly, so delta out-competed it. Perhaps if there were no restrictions it would have done better. Hard to say though.

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

#725

Post by throw868788 »

not2b wrote: post #720
parasense wrote: post #698

I would imagine that a virus would eventually adapt/evolve to a point to where it co-exists harmoniously with the host organism. I've heard somewhere that herpes simplex virus used to have terrible symptoms, like genital blisters, but over the years the most common variant has no symptoms, and most people have no idea they have it.... and a huge proportion of human have it. I would imagine all viral contagions would…

There's no guarantee that it will work that way: smallpox didn't get less deadly. Only vaccination wiped it out. If the patient is contagious before developing symptoms, the virus can spread very effectively even if many patients die.

> If the patient is contagious before developing symptoms, the virus can spread very effectively even if many patients die.

For better or worse all that means is that viruses may evolve to delay their symptoms rather than overall peak severity if that's possible. It means still just as delay but with a good enough delay to spread.

I don't really see the selective pressure however for this virus to become more benign. It seems to have enough people to infect without it given how contagious it is. It doesn't really have to become more benign to allow even more spread.

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

#726

Post by not2b »

coldcode wrote: post #34
boringg wrote: post #21

I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve? I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while t…

Any genetic mutation which causes premature death of the host, or fails to be communicative will generally die off. Any mutation which keeps the host alive (or at least longer), or makes it easier to transmit the virus to another host, will keep the virus around. This type of behavior can be muted if there is an animal host that acts as a reservoir.

Unfortunately, mink and white-tailed deer (the most common deer in the eastern US) are Covid reservoirs now. Probably other mammals as well.

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

#727

Post by spookthesunset »

sjg007 wrote: post #685
spookthesunset wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that doesn't work, lock downs are coming.. If they lock down again, they'll lock down every single winter from here on out. Lockdowns in a post-vaccine world are complete madness.

I dunno, masks seem pretty effective as are capacity limits. That and rapid testing before gathering seems like a pretty good plan.

Mask and capacity limits until when? And why? What problem is being solved now? What’s the goal?

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

#728

Post by vkou »

spookthesunset wrote: post #545
alex-korr wrote: post #475

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.

> nerds will drum up any FUD related to omicron to postpone return to the office. And push for mask mandates that require people with jobs at stores and stuff to continue wearing their mask 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week until forever. "It's just a piece of cloth" say all the privileged tech workers typing from their cozy home office. If tech workers had to wear masks their entire workday, I bet most of them would be…

> Don't even get started on how our response completely decimated the working class

Odd that you say this, when every blue collar place around me is having trouble hiring staff. Between stimulus checks, rising wages, and becoming way pickier about which jobs they are taking, this is the sort of thing that I would expect the working class to do when they are doing better for themselves.

You know what actually decimates the working class? Catching COVID. Taking unpaid time from work, because they fall sick. Crippling medical bills, from trips to the doctor, or heaven forbid, the hospital. Lingering damage from long COVID. Strangely enough, the 'reopen everything' political movement also tends to oppose things like worker protections, mandated sick days, affordable healthcare, taxes on the rich...

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

#729

Post by kyleblarson »

Animats wrote: post #676

Moderna is working on a vaccine targeting the Omicron variant for 2022.[1] The mRNA vaccine technology is "agile". There's a workflow from sequencing a virus to generating a candidate vaccine. It only took two days to generate the original COVID-19 vaccine. It's the clinical testing in small, then large groups that's the time consuming part. Also, the inhaled vaccines are entering clinical testing.[2] It's not like w…

Moderna CEO equity sales for the last couple years. Nothing to see here, no reason to distrust them pushing endless boosters:

https://finance.yahoo.com/screener/insider/BANCEL%20STEPHANE...

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

#730

Post by marvin »

hutzlibu wrote: post #713
mchusma wrote: post #695

Omicron doesn't change fundamentally where we were with Delta. Its infection enough that everyone will get it. Vaccines protect you (they are banned for kids under 5). Pfizer's treatment (Paxlovid) is a very effective cure (currently banned). The death rate for vaccinated individuals is extremely low, at its current rate its about 26 per 100,000. The flu killed 24 per 100,000 in california. We are at the endgame. The…

"Ensure people have reasonable rights to keep wearing masks or something in public. " When was that ever forbidden, except on demonstrations?

Can't speak for the US, but e.g. generally Norwegian teachers aren't allowed to wear masks at work. Unless things have happened behind the scenes that I'm not aware of, this is under threat of being fired, although I doubt anyone has actually been fired over it.

Surely there must be other professions with similar rules, or cultural quirks to the same effect.

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