Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado • Hacker News Board

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#451

Post by awb » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:37 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...

Many of the first infected in SA previously had Delta. I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that contracting Omicron gives you natural immunity to Delta.

Here are some links saying you can get both:

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/omicron-delta-en...

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1543522/can-you-...

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25678686...

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#452

Post by contravariant » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:38 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #357

contravariant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you hoping for Covid to become endemic?

At this point that is the best case. COVID zero is a pipe dream, there are just too many vaccine refusers and too many people refusing to do anything to avoid spreading the virus. If COVID follows the typical evolutionary pattern of viruses and becomes less dangerous, we can get back to normal life -- the question is how long that will take.

I'm not sure what basis you have for assuming it will evolve to be less dangerous, Since it still leaves most of its host alive I can't think of a mechanism that would prevent it from staying equally deadly, except of course that most of the population will have some degree of immunity.

This pandemic will inevitably end, after which Covid-19 may stay endemic, but Covid-19 becoming endemic and the pandemic ending aren't really the same thing and frankly aren't really causally related so to me it seems weird to express hope for the endemic to begin rather than the pandemic to end.

Anyway, we'll need to ride out this last wave first. I'd say hopefully last, but we may end up hoping it wasn't. Regardless let's hope it at least burns itself out in the process as opposed to smouldering for ever.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#453

Post by wallacoloo » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

steelstraw wrote: post #121

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 been over ever since the vaccines became widely available. After vaccination many of us went back to normal and haven't looked back. Huge bureaucracies just take a long time to change course and some simply refuse to recognize that it's endemic for whatever reasons.

it’s nice to believe, but a lot of our ability to return to normal requires these bureaucracies to be on board. it doesn’t matter that you individually are comfortable sending your kid to school, that school’s not going to be open if the consensus and bureaucracies are against you.

somehow we failed to coordinate the back-to-normal in my region when the vaccines arrived. this seems like the next best opportunity to admit that we’re ready to lift restrictions, so here’s hoping we can keep the majority on board this time.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#454

Post by jollybean » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:39 PM UTC

peder wrote: post #419

shrikant wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations. Both my wife and I (double vaxxed for 5 months, not boosted yet although were just about to do so) caught Omicron-flavoured Covid in the lead-up to Christmas and it wiped us out each for 2-3 days each, with a combination of fatigue, aches, fever, and violent coughing. Certainly worse than any cold or flu we've had up until that point. I still have a pretty nasty cough and a throat inflammation. Aren'…

This is one of the most privileged takes I've ever read. OH GOOD HEAVENS. You were sick for a whole 2-3 days. Best lockdown the country to avoid what most people experience 1+ times per year.

? It's killed 800 000 people.

The 'privileged' comment is 'I got COVID it was just like a cold, I can do this every year ... so there's no more pandemic'.

Conflating their personal anecdote with the range of outcomes.

For now, we're still in a pandemic. Hopefully it will get better.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#455

Post by parthdesai » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:41 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #417

parthdesai wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so the answer is to stay locked down and screw over small businesses and tons of workers every winter because a subset of people have harsher symptoms?

Every policy has tradeoffs. We could save around 20,000 lives per year (in the US) with a simple policy change: just cap all speed limits at 45 mph. I think it's a fair critique that some lockdown measures go too far (particularly those with low efficacy, or "safety theater"), but it's more helpful to take about specifics, rather than "lockdowns good" or "lockdowns bad". At some point (and maybe it's now?), we'll nee…

I agree, that is my point is exactly. At a certain point, we need to learn to live with it. Majority of us on HN are in an extremely privileged position where we can WFH and infact for a lot of us, pandemic led to more savings. But that is not the case for an average person out there. There are families out there have been ruined financially for life because their business had to shut down. Kids very much might have life long repercussions from the school shut down. At a certain we have to take all this into account before just initiating a province wide lockdown every winter (which is what is happening in the country I live in, Canada).

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#456

Post by jollybean » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:41 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!"

"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!""

Yes, it's called 'Science'.

The vaccine absolutely helps to reduce symptoms, hospitalizations and death, even 5 months in.

There are millions of Omicron cases around the world measure up against various vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#457

Post by zpeti » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:46 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.

Just a thought after reading the good news - ok this is great for the US and the west where there is decent vaccination.

What the hell is going to happen with the omicron spread in countries with hardly any vaccination? I mean if it really is like measles, this could be terrible.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#458

Post by time_to_smile » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:46 PM UTC

twox2 wrote: post #416

HNDen21 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 5 people in the house, 1 vaccinated, 4 not.. the ones that were not had a 2 day fever... the one vaccinated (me) had no fever but just a cough for 3-4 days. All in all just like a mild flu

Anecdotal stories don't paint an accurate picture. I live in NYC and had Covid xmas week. It was ROUGH. (I'm double jabbed.) I also know unvaxxed people (0 shots) that just had a little sniffle and bounced back in 2 days. I also know of a seemingly healthy young lady that tested positive and died 3 days later.

> Anecdotal stories don't paint an accurate picture

You would have thought that after 800,000+ deaths in the US people would have learned the importance of understanding statistics when dealing with these issues, especially on a place like HN, but pandemic has melted people's brains and now people are arguing anecdotes about what constitutes a "bad cold" and a "mild flu".

The funny part is that it doesn't really matter because it's not like we get to collectively vote whether the pandemic will end or not. It's pretty clear that, even given how extremely contagious omicron is, people don't care as much as the used to about a seasonal flu.

Even supposing covid sticks around and becomes "only" as bad as the flu, 10 years ago if your said it was fine to double the annual cases of flu and flu death people would have said that was insane.

Sadly if people haven't learned to reason about these problems correctly now, it means they very likely never will.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#459

Post by collias » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:46 PM UTC

pmoleri wrote: post #244

nickysielicki wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not a lucky ending as much as it is the inevitable ending. Virus evolution tends toward becoming more contagious and less deadly. We've known this for a long time, and we have no reason to believe that this virus would be any different.

If viruses tended toward becoming more deadly as they became closer to being endemic, humanity (or any animal) would not have lasted very long.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#460

Post by redanddead » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

clcaev wrote: post #440

Don't forget about long covid. My covid infection was mostly gone in 3 days; yet 7 days after that I'm in the ER for peripheral neuropathy. Several days later I am still here with perhaps permanent loss of function. There are a few other youngsters like me with covid complications on the neurology floor, most with less than 2 comorbidities. Oh yea, the ER was packed, 6h to triage.

Wasn't there some kind of anticoagulant therapy that helped persons with long covid? it was posted here yesterday I think