Live data from Hacker News

Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

covid19.colorado.gov

521–530 of 703 posts

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment makes it out like everyone with Covid had pnuemonia and shortness of breath for weeks, when really it was a small minority.

According to the CDC, 30% to 40% of symptomatic people get shortness of breath, which is a significant share. That is a signal that the infection has reached the lower respiratory system. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/non-us-setting...

Had I reported to the CDC (I didn't), I would have reported that I woke up in the middle of the night unable to take a deep breath, went nearly immediately back to sleep, and was free of all symptoms the next day. This would have counted toward the total (had I reported), and such counting needs a wider perspective before such things as say, creating lockdown policies based on these figures.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#522
post #516
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.

From her "scary" post: > In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York. When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospit…

> But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing.

I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#523
post #451
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...

if natural immunity derived from omicron doesn't protect you against Delta then why is there no more Delta in Colorado (as per TFA)?

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SA had very high numbers of previous infections, so there was a ton of pre-existing immunity.

So if everyone gets Omicron, we will have a ton of pre-existing immunity?

We already have a great deal of pre-existing immunity. The big question we're answering right now is whether vaccine-based immunity (which we have more of in AU, UK, and the US) is as robust as immunity from infection (main source of immunity in SA). It's still too early to say with certainty, but it's looking like the vaccines are working if you're not immunocompromised.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#525

Serious question. If Omicron was the initial variant of Covid 19, would we have seen shut downs and the level of global response we did? Is the thought it's only this level of mildness because of vaccination rates? My gut is that the answer would be yes because this variant targets children more effectively.

define "targets". Transmissibility or actual harm? Children are at no more risk of harm from this variant than any other AFAIK.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#526
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are referring to the "There is no federal solution to covid" quote. But it was in the context of talking to state governors and Biden saying a federal plan wasn't being forced on them -- that the primary work is done at the state level and the federal level is there to support it. https://api.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/05/save-ameri...

Apparently in October 2020 Joe Biden believed that there was a federal solution to COVID. What has changed since then? "We're eight months into this pandemic, and Donald Trump still doesn't have a plan to get this virus under control. I do." https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1316894374500962305

I can't speak for him, and obviously tweets are short enough they can't contain it either. But apparently the plan was (a) to use federal funds and manpower to get vaccines spread as widely as possible. There was an early goals of 100M doses in the first 100 days, which was met, and another goal was set and met [1]. Another factor was sending the message: this isn't a "Democrat hoax", that it is real, is killing people, the vaccines are safe and certainly much safer than getting covid. I say that has been accomplished.

On the other hand, there is a large contingent of people and talking heads who have tried their hardest to spread fear and misinformation. We are still at something like 60% inoculated, and many doses of the vaccine ended up going bad or were shipped overseas because not enough people trust the vaccine.

Third, there is no way to prevent novel variants from causing new problems, other than getting the old variants under control to reduce the vast pool of variant breeders.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/56901183

[EDIT] Also, your terse "he claimed there was a federal solution" is also subject to debate. He said he had a plan, but that doesn't mean the plan was a federal-only solution.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#527
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ontario science table dashboard has the hospitalization ratio for vaccinated to unvaccinated still at 5:1. Where are you getting that these rates have become nearly equal? If the rates are the same, and 5/6 people are vaccinated, we would expect 5/6 people admitted to the hospital to be vaccinated. In fact, 5/6 people are vaccinated in the 12-40 age cohort, with older (and more vulnerable) populations having at lea…

You're misunderstanding. The dashboard is per Capita (so you don't need to account for the stuff you're describing), and shows 5x lower rate of vaccinated people hospitalized (and 10x lower ventilated). A far cry from the ~1.5x rate mentioned by ggp

Edit: It was a series of errors. Please check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29830131

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#528
post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From her "scary" post: > In certain jurisdictions, though, we’ve met or exceeded last winter’s hospitalization peak. We can see this in many states in the Northeast, including New York. When presented with a new source, I tend to judge people based on their perspectives on things I know about. This one is a case study in being misleading, while not technically lying. New York state has only "met" last winter's hospit…

> But it's still misleading, because a lot of these hospitalizations are going to ERs for testing. I don't think this is correct. Going to the ER is not the same as being admitted to the hospital. From everything I've read, ER visits are not counted as hospitalizations anywhere.

Yes, they are. They count anyone admitted to a hospital in NYC, at any time, for any duration:

https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/ced762b25...

> Hospitalization counts reflect the total number of people with COVID-19 ever admitted to a hospital, not the number of people currently admitted.

If you go to the ER and make it to a treatment area, you're admitted. These are bright-line distinctions. Nobody is making judgment calls on the data ("did this person really get admitted, or is it just someone in the ER for an hour? Let me look at the chart!") at this level of analysis.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#529
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...

Variants disaggregated by locality within US:

https://outbreak.info/

Post reply on HN