Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado • Hacker News Board

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#271

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

callumprentice wrote: post #252

jbeam wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exponential growth. Lets say that there is one delta infection and one omicron infection in the population. Each delta infection causes two more people to be infected, while each omicron infection causes three more people to be infected. The growth of a single delta infection: 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 Versus a single omicron infection: 1 -> 3 -> 9 -> 27 -> 81 -> 243 -> 729 Omicron started out as 50% of the…

Nod - that explains why omicron grew so quickly but why, in doing so, does delta not persist?

It does persist, all else remaining the same, but since it is so much less infectious it will go extinct if and when anything makes a dent in Omicron. Dents including lockdowns, increased vaccination, changes in public behavior or eventual immunity.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#272

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

polski-g wrote: post #128

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 can also catch the cold over and over. 1 or 2 colds a year is pretty typical.

The common cold is not one disease. There are hundreds of different viruses which all cause similar cold symptoms, including four other coronaviruses.

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/common_cold_ca...

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#273

Post by stormbrew » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #266

stormbrew wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of unvaccinated (the vast majority, in fact) also experience mild symptoms. This is true of essentially all diseases except some very very rare exceptions that also tend to burn out very quickly. That's just how disease spread works, mild cases help the virus propagate. It's not like the virus is a mustache twirling villain that wants to murder you, it takes a fairly specific balance to obtain long term surv…

> Severe outcomes are blatantly more common, per capita, in people who are not vaccinated. With omicron? I have not seen any data to support that.

I mean, it's pretty early to be drawing conclusions about this with omicron. Especially since it hit right as people in most of the vaccinated world were hitting 5-6mo since their second shots. That doesn't mean it's "unfalsifiable" it just means it hasn't been yet.

That said, I don't think the null hypothesis is suddenly "vaccines do nothing" for some reason. It's clear enough it spreads more easily but that doesn't suddenly invalidate all prior assumptions about the vaccines' effectiveness against severe outcomes.

Edit: I'm very happy to be proven wrong about this but I feel like people should direct some of these replies more to the person I was replying to? I'm not the one who thinks vaccines do nothing here. :P

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#274

Post by jonpalmisc » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

hanoz wrote: post #267

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.

Are the unvaccinated catching it over and over again? That seems to me a vanishingly rare occurrence, admittedly within a rapidly shrinking set of people. It would be interesting to get some figures for this, hopefully without being lynched for asking the question.

Personal anecdote, sample size of 1: I know an unvaccinated person who has had it 3 times. Not immunocompromised, otherwise healthy.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#275

Post by romaniv » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

I highly recommend everyone here to watch these two cannels for Covid news and analysis:

https://www.youtube.com/c/Campbellteaching

https://odysee.com/@DrMobeenSyed:1

The first one is a bit more user-friendly, the second one goes more in-depth into mechanics and research, but neither peddle fear or moralism. There is actually quite a bit of positive news lately:

Omicron uses two different ways to enter cells. This is part of why it's so transmissible, but it's also why it is less severe: https://odysee.com/@DrMobeenSyed:1/omicron-science-is-differ...

Omicron generates some immunity for Delta, so it is likely to displace Delta entirely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYLbJ0H8zdc

Most Omicron hospitalization are accidental so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2VgBm9pTI

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#276

Post by cmrdporcupine » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

gz5 wrote: post #84

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD, has a nice substack from perspective of an epidemiologist. Two notable recent Omicron posts on that substack: The potentially scary aspects: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa... The potentially good news: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good... Obviously it is still early, but imo those 2 posts give a decent lay of the land.

" We can easily see that in many graphs, but my favorite is below from New York City, showing a clear distinction in hospitalizations among vaccinated compared to unvaccinated people"

I don't see this as much here in Ontario. Among the vaccinated as of today there is a 10.10/100k hospitalization status vs 16/100k for the unvaccinated (and 11.9 for one-dose). The hospitalization rate among the vaccinated is climbing quickly. Yes, there's still a gap, but yikes.

ICU is better, though, with a 0.76/100k rate for the vaccinated vs 4.74/100k for the unvaccinated.

This may have to do with different hospitalization and testing criterion, I don't know. But hospitalization here is in full exponential growth and not just among the unvaccinated.

Obviously being vaccinated is still far preferable. I have had 3 doses (1 AstraZeneca and 2 Pfizer) FWIW.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#277

Post by bengale » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

Mordisquitos wrote: post #253

gz5 wrote: post #84

Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD, has a nice substack from perspective of an epidemiologist. Two notable recent Omicron posts on that substack: The potentially scary aspects: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa... The potentially good news: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good... Obviously it is still early, but imo those 2 posts give a decent lay of the land.

Plus, to preemptively address any assumptions that Dr Jetelina may have an optimistic bias, compare her " There is good news " article from 5th January, which is based on what we now know, with her article from 26th November when Omicron (initially called "Nu") was first detected: " New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 " https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/new-concernin... At the time, little was known about…

Yeah I've consistently found her writing to be good. She's one of the primary sources I use for keeping up to date with what's going on with covid.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#278

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #175

What does 100% prevalence mean? 100% of people are at least silent carriers?

Based on the chart it's 100% of the positive tests being Omnicron.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#279

Post by betterunix2 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

gotoeleven wrote: post #257

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remember all the articles claiming covid gave you brain damage? What ever happened to that?

Not very hard to find the current, best understanding of the phenomenon:

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Current-Research/Coronavirus-and-N...

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#280

Post by Buttons840 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

beebmam wrote: post #245

jaywalk wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acti…

I have some skeptical family members who like to talk about 3rd party anecdotes. "A nurse told me she saw blah blah blah happen". As you say, stories like this are not a way to know a thing, but I can't get them to understand.

It's like we rolled a die once, and it came up 6, and now we're all forming our own special opinions on whether or not the die is fair. We just can't know. Of course, if someone rolled the dice 30,000 times and reported what they found, that would be great (wink wink).

Instead of using Calc 1 as a filter course, we should use Statistics instead.