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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

#941

Post by mensetmanusman »

clairity wrote: post #906
mensetmanusman wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember in June of 2020 discussing the new aerosol data on HN and cringing about the 6 ft recommendation with cloth masks indoors. Finally a year+ later the WHO admitted as such (aerosol risk can be >50 ft for hours after a spread event), so sometimes we are ahead :)

> "aerosol risk can be >50 ft for hours after a spread event" no, that's cringeworthy fearmongering. the virus is fragile and falls apart relatively quickly outside the body. the main risk behavior is having long conversations in close quarters where you're constantly exposed to a warm airstream of live virus.

In the right humidity conditions with poor airflow it has been found to be stable for hours, this is how there were super spreader events from 1>500 in certain types of factories.

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

#942

Post by zzzeek »

listless wrote: post #40
zzzeek wrote: post #27

cue the "it's just the flu!" army. on this end, I do not want covid at all, straight up. I will keep wearing my N95 to all the dirty looks I keep getting and boost as much as the boosts are there.

I think you should plan on getting it at some point. That’s what endemic means and that’s where we are. You’re just prolonging the inevitable.

before delta hit the US and the pfizer vaccine granted 95% protection from infection against the dominant strain in the US at that time, that was a place I was comfortable with. There will be more boosters tailored towards whatever variants have come down the pike and at the point where the risk becomes tolerable, then sure of course some form of covid will be inevitable but it would be mostly indistinguishable from any other minor flu. that is, no chance of requiring a lung transplant post-recovery. covid is not there yet, the current variants and inadequate vaccine protection still leave the chance of permanent and severe lung damage too high for me to "plan" on getting it.

to be clear, one component of minor vs. major covid is how large of a viral load someone is initially exposed towards. I'm fairly certain if I take a deep breath near an infected person, the N95 should reduce the load I'm exposed towards, hopefully significantly.

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

#943

Post by sjg007 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #921
sjg007 wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the clinical guidance for younger women (<50) is that they get a two dose mRNA vaccine and not Janssen or AZ for this very reason.

Back when I was vaccinated, all four vaccines (pfeizer, moderna, jannsen and astrazeneca) were safe and good for everyone, but there were availability issues with pfeizer on one side, and on the other, jannsen needed only one dose, and you'd get your covid certificate faster (so one month sooner than with pfeizer, and that also means one month less of paying for tests and waiting in long lines every two days when the…

It’s more nuanced than that in terms of safety.

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

#944

Post by native_samples »

ADSSDA wrote: post #578
native_samples wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

And why do we think that? Because public health agencies said so?

It's not because the trials proved it - they didn't. At only ~64,000 participants the e.g. Pfizer trial was not powered to show any difference to deaths and didn't use hospitalizations as a goal metric either, only infections.

And so we're forced to rely on the testimony of the same people in charge of the program, where their data is often missing or deceptive in some way. For example Germany has been claiming nearly all cases occur in the unvaccinated. It turned out this wasn't true. Rather, they don't have data at all on the status of most cases, and then reallocate all the "unknown" column to "unvaccinated" because ... well, why not? No matter what they do, plenty of people will still take their word for everything. This was revealed by Die Welt and the response was nothing. They still do it, as far as I know.

The UK data is usually considered to be the best, as in, the most detailed. And there, when the data on deaths is studied carefully it turns out to be riddled with anomalies and problems that cast doubt on whether vaccines did in fact reduce mortality (the numbers are low enough that statistical artifacts can actually matter). For example, in the UK data vaccination reduces non-COVID deaths in unvaccinated people. Don't take my word for it, ask a professor of risk management:

http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-syste...

"Our research team have now analysed the ONS England November mortality data. We conclude that, despite seeming evidence to support vaccine effectiveness, this conclusion is doubtful because of a range of serious inconsistencies and anomalies", "The ONS data provide no reliable evidence that the vaccines reduce all-cause mortality."

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

#945

Post by CountDrewku »

zzzeek wrote: post #804
CountDrewku wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's for hospital workers wearing them 18 hours a day in highly contaminated environments. I am exposed to other people for an hour a day with social distancing, tops. The N95 is much more protective than a cloth mask and it is entirely for self protection, the last thing in the world I want to do is make a "statement" in the places i go. However the intolerance for my silent practice is fairly frequent.

You don't need a mask if you're social distancing. You've got some major cognitive dissonance going on. There's absolutely no scientific backing behind what you just said. Your own health anxiety is talking. People are looking at you weirdly because it looks like you're in full psychosis mode doing illogical things.

The biggest issue is that the minority of people like you are dictating how everyone else has to lead their lives. Dirty looks aren't "intolerance". Now, if they were telling you that you could not wear a mask that might be intolerant (see how that's similar to telling people they have to wear masks).

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

#946

Post by kenjackson »

dham wrote: post #680
kenjackson wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that says something slightly different. Because 42% of the US population is obese, even if Covid hospitalized completely at random you'd expect 42% of those admitted to be obese (not that obesity is the cause of 42% of admissions). They saw 50% admitted were obese. This implies that being obese increases the risk of hospitalization by ~20%. But still useful data. Thanks.

I mean I think it says something very blunt. If you're not overweight you probably don't need 5 boosters and you can probably go about your day and play the odds. People still know how to play the odds right, they do it everyday? It's funny to me people are so scared of Covid when they're going to die of Heart Disease or Cancer. There's just no nuance in any conversation related to Covid.

I honestly don’t think you understand the data even after I explained it to you. Unfortunately this is why even basic headlines get misunderstood by the public.

Let me ask you a question. If weight had absolutely no impact on Covid then what expected percentage of Covid hospitalizations would be with overweight people?

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

#947

Post by vmception »

ramblerman wrote: post #935
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-…

You are right we don't need more studies, your hunch is sufficient.

Need wasnt the word I was really thinking, more about having more people predict the expected outcome accurately

there is fundamental knowledge involved here that colleges teach, and its good to know what the expected outcome is and how the studies conform to that expected outcome

the studies are conforming to the expected outcome, which is good

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

#948

Post by [deleted] »

smukherjee19 wrote: post #934
johnisgood wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before 2020, no mRNA technology platform (drug or vaccine) had been authorized for use in humans, so there was a risk of unknown effects.[79] The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic required faster production capability of mRNA vaccines, made them attractive to national health organisations, and led to debate about the type of initial authorization mRNA vaccines should get (including emergency use authorization or expanded acce…

This is honestly one of my concerns (double-vaccinated with mRNA, no issues and I am not anti-vax). The thing is, before the COVID-19, the world had barely heard of mRNA vaccines and suddenly there are billions of people vaccinated across the world in 2 years. I have no intention of denying that these vaccines have saved millions, if not billions of lives by preventing hospitalization, death and further overloading o…

[deleted]

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

#949

Post by johnisgood »

epylar wrote: post #811
johnisgood wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before 2020, no mRNA technology platform (drug or vaccine) had been authorized for use in humans, so there was a risk of unknown effects.[79] The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic required faster production capability of mRNA vaccines, made them attractive to national health organisations, and led to debate about the type of initial authorization mRNA vaccines should get (including emergency use authorization or expanded acce…

Are you talking about Pandemrix? https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... says there was a lot of follow up on that and no link to narcolepsy was found

About particularly that, Wikipedia says "In 2018, a multinational study including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists published safety data on adjuvanted pH1N1 vaccines. Sweden was the only country where increased narcolepsy IRs were found in the period after vaccination campaigns. The ability of the researchers to evaluate the Pandremix brand vaccine was limited.", but you can read other ones as well here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy

It is quite interesting.

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

#950

Post by ericb »

dfabulich wrote: post #768
ericb wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reply is totally off-topic for the parent you replied to.

I see why you're saying that, but I think you missed their point. Challenge trials might well allow us to make a safe vaccine available sooner to those who want it, but if we mandate a vaccine that has only undergone challenge trials and then that vaccine kills someone, it would certainly be politically disastrous for challenge trials.

I think there were some edits after I replied.
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