Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado • Hacker News Board

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#241

Post by PraetorianGourd » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #190

spurgu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

Granted this still needs peer review...but you may want to look into this: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1139035/v1 I hope your recovery goes well and you truly have zero issues.

That also covers only previous, more virulent variants. Omicron does not seem to infect areas outside of upper respiratory so it is a tad overzealous to spread such fear over a preprint of a different variant. It would be like comparing a mild flu strain to H1N1 original.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#242

Post by spurgu » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #190

spurgu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

Granted this still needs peer review...but you may want to look into this: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1139035/v1 I hope your recovery goes well and you truly have zero issues.

Keep up the fear-mongering... I'm healthy, I'm not worried about that at all. Neither am I afraid of drowning while boating.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#243

Post by dehrmann » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

With all the restrictions over the past two years, have we been selecting for hyper-contagious strains?

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#244

Post by pmoleri » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #134

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?

It’s just politicians trying to save face at this point. Trillions of dollars lost and total debasement of western currencies was all to arrive at the natural solution to a virus that was destined to become endemic from the very start: let it play out. Two administrations, one from both parties. Same fed chair. Same people at the CDC and WHO. It’s not partisan. It’s institutional failure.

I'm not sure what you mean. Vaccine was a success, it saved millions of lives. What's becoming endemic is a less deadly variant, otherwise we would be back to square 0, confinement and developing a new vaccine. So, instead of calling it a failure I would call it success with a lucky ending, if everything continues like this of course.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#245

Post by beebmam » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #194

phonypc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm... mild symptoms after being vaccinated. It's almost like the vaccine worked or something. How weird.

Plenty of unvaccinated (the vast majority, in fact) also experience mild symptoms. It's almost like you've got an unfalsifiable way to always say "it worked!"

When you look at individuals, you'll never be able to truly say any treatment "worked" with certainty for virtually anything. It's same with nearly all medical treatments. Humans, very often, get better on their own with time, and time can't ever be rewinded to test the alternative.

The way we know a medical treatment works is by looking at large scale data, controlling for variables, understanding mechanisms of action, and by approaching this science in good faith and not cherry picking data to fit one's own conclusions. There's a concept known as "Number Needed to Treat" that is probably relevant to your concerns here.

Vaccinations have historically been extremely effective for many diseases, and COVID is no exception. It's accurate to say (most) "COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 viruses". Omicron is so new that it's hard to be certain of anything regarding it right now, but we'll have a better picture in a few weeks. I do know that we're seeing many hospitals get overwhelmed across the US currently, and many medical workers are out sick with a COVID infection.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#246

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #192

causality0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the fact you can catch it over and over. My wife is currently battling Omicron after we both had covid at the start of last year. Fully vaccinated and boosted three weeks ago, caught it anyway. With an infected population this massive mutations happen fast enough to cause a new wave before the old one burns out.

You say "over and over" but Omicron is the first variant that actually evades immunity (both natural and vaccine-induced) in a meaningful way. What we don't know is the level of immunity that an Omicron infection will provide. It could actually confer immunity to both itself and previous variants, which would effectively end the pandemic.

Actually prior infection by previous variants appear to still provide a significant level of cellular immunity against Omicron. There will always be some rare outliers who have a rough time but most reinfection cases will experience milder symptoms because their immune systems are already primed to respond.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.06.471446v1

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#247

Post by xg15 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

bunfunton wrote: post #101

xg15 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's a good article, as far as I can tell - in particular as actually presents some evidence for reasonable assumptions. Though to be fair, it was known before that GoF research was conducted in the WIV (I believe) and there is not yet any evidence that the research actually resulted in this virus.

What's new to me though is how deep the involvement of US entities apparently was and how close to SARS-CoV-2 territory the whole endeavour came. So in this case, absence of evidence is definitely not evidence of absence.

Also that one of the drivers of shutting down the lab-leak theory was apparently commissioning the WIV to do GoF research! (Though I still wonder what all the other scientists supporting that editorial were doing.)

If those FOIA papers will be used for more investigations in the near future, thing should definitely become interesting.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#248

Post by spurgu » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #199

spurgu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

I'm happy it's not a battle for you, but it is for my wife.

I'm sorry about your wife, hope she gets through it fine.

It's mainly that you provided a personal anecdote in one direction and I found it prudent to provide one in the other direction - one that echoes everything we've seen so far, cases skyrocketing, hospitalization rates barely nudging.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#249

Post by spurgu » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

throwhauser wrote: post #206

spurgu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

Every year you'll be a year older though, which eventually results in being in a different (higher) risk category.

Sure, and at some point I might even consider flu shots. So what?

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#250

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #220

UncleOxidant wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"battling Omicron" Can you give us some indication of how severe your symptoms are? Mostly we're hearing that if you've been vaccinated and/or you've had covid in the past that omicron is relatively mild.

Muscle aches, chest pain, headache, and severe coughing fits that won't let her sleep and scare me when I hear them from the other room. After being awake for two days and one of them dropping her blood oxygen to 87 I made her go to the emergency room where they gave her prescription cough medicine that finally let her sleep. Omicron is less dangerous than Delta. It's still dangerous.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Everyone is shouting in the media (including here) Omicron is upper tract instead of lower so I had hoped you wouldn't get oxygen drops that low or lung related chest pains. Maybe I misunderstood what these things mean although some renowned newspapers here explained it like that.