Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado • Hacker News Board

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#101

Post by bunfunton » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #76

trhway wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why did it take so long for one particular virus to leak why long? The EcoAlliance's gain-of-function (with the "Human Subjects Included" checked) NIH grant for Wuhan started in 2014, the human-specific DNA modifications of the virus were described in the EcoAlliance's 2018 DARPA grant proposal, and in the end of 2019 - voila! With regard to omicron - we may be also witnessing the continuation of the same magic of t…

I guess you're alluding to the "lab leak" theory. I can't say I know how serious it should be taken, but just this: If this really was a lab leak and China knows something we don't know, then I'd be really scared of their current behaviour of locking down entire agglomerations over two-digit numbers of mostly asymptomatic cases.

Very serious. Check out this article. Title not representative . Can skip first 10-20% if wanted.

https://www.newsweek.com/how-dr-fauci-other-officials-withhe...

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#102

Post by KennyBlanken » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #91

There are 15k covid RNA in every ml of sewage coming out of boston right now. Figure 200l a day of sewage per person and that is a lot of covid. I would hold off on eating oysters for a bit. https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm

That's not how viruses work.

Early in the pandemic researchers swabbed lots of surfaces and while they were able to amplify COVID DNA from a bunch of the swabs, they were not able to successfully culture a single sample from any surface, which included the hospital room of a patient on a respirator where the virus would have been beyond abundant.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#103

Post by benjaminwootton » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

Surely this is the end of the pandemic? With an estimated 300k+ cases per day here in the UK, that is 10 million this month on top of everyone who has already had it. It’s as though nobody is ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room that Covid is nearly finished.

Or am I missing something?

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#104

Post by time_to_smile » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

I don't think it matters if omicron is ultimately worse or not, nobody cares anymore. I was out visiting a gym yesterday, in an area with sky rocketing cases, and no one was wearing masks. They talked multiple times about how much they cared about health, without even a hint of irony. I was initially put off, but realized that this is just the world we're in.

In two weeks we'll find out if the calculus of lower death rate x higher case count means anything, but even if it turns out to be a complete disaster with record deaths, I just don't see anyone caring.

Pandemic is done after omicron no matter what. We already largely ignore deaths from climate change (which depending on your calculations can easily be as high globally as covid), we don't even speculate on deaths from environmental pollution. Covid is just another environmental hazard that we will accept like any other.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#105

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #13

akmarinov wrote: post #6

If it’s milder than Delta - then that’s good right? Or do the increased cases lead to more hospitalizations than Delta?

Scary thing is. Milder disease is a constant factor improvement in hospitalization. But faster spreading (higher R value) is an exponential worsening in hospitalization. It's probably better to have a 50% hospitalization rate and an R value of 0.8 than a 5% hospitalization rate and an R value of 2. After 3 'generations' of spreading the second situation already has more hospitalizations.

The CDC has estimated the overall hospitalization rate since the start of the pandemic at about 5%. Now with vaccines and other improved outpatient therapies the hospitalization rate is dropping.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

The Omicron variant R0 value appears to be somewhere in the 7 - 10 range.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#106

Post by kuroguro » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #103

Surely this is the end of the pandemic? With an estimated 300k+ cases per day here in the UK, that is 10 million this month on top of everyone who has already had it. It’s as though nobody is ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room that Covid is nearly finished. Or am I missing something?

I really hope so. The hospitalizations usually lag behind case detection AFAIK, so there might still be some damage to watch out for.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#107

Post by rafale » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #93

The CDC publishes a weekly chart showing the proportions of circulating variants for the US as a whole. The Delta variant had previously driven most other variants near extinction, and now Omicron is doing the same to Delta. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#circulatingVariant...

Our savior Omicron. The ultimate vaccinator. Nature finally had mercy on us.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#108

Post by KennyBlanken » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #4

omicron has solidly taken over Vancouver BC. Anecdotal evidence: in the past two years (except this past week) I have only known 1 person who got covid. In the past week I know over 20 people who have got covid. I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of the end of covid lockdowns. omicron is taking the world by storm and I wouldn't be surprised if the entire world gets it in the next few weeks.

Last night on NPR there was a scientist cautioning people who think this means the end because it'll burn itself out.

His point was that nobody predicted delta, and nobody predicted omicron. There's no telling how serious the next variant will be (and arguably there's much greater chance of a variant given how many people are getting infected.)

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#109

Post by etchalon » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #103

Surely this is the end of the pandemic? With an estimated 300k+ cases per day here in the UK, that is 10 million this month on top of everyone who has already had it. It’s as though nobody is ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room that Covid is nearly finished. Or am I missing something?

I'm not sure if we can say it's "over". People were saying the same thing after the Delta waves started subsiding and behold … Omicron.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#110

Post by rattray » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

akmarinov wrote: post #6

If it’s milder than Delta - then that’s good right? Or do the increased cases lead to more hospitalizations than Delta?

Anecdotally, the hospital my partner works at has been frantically converting almost all of their floors to covid floors due to the influx of patients. But, few require ICU/ventilator.

So yes it's bad/dangerous in that hospitals may fill to overflowing and struggle to treat covid or non-covid patients, but not bad in that Omicron is directly killing more people than Delta et al.