I wonder if there is comparative research on the mutations of SarsCov2 compared to other betacoronaviruses. Is it mutating similarly, or do the vaccines /self-isolation and distancing cause a different mutation pattern
Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
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Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skepticism and methodological criticism are definitionally "science". Not cult like faith. Ad hominems and appeals to authority are not valid arguments.
Paying more attention to information in a peer-reviewed journal than information in a pseudonymous substack is not "cult-like faith." Of course the study could be wrong.
The study is not and has not passed peer review.
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#403This is honesty good news. The best case scenario is a new less deadly highly contagious strain that become the most dominant and spreads worldwide. Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear train running full steam. A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world.
I agree. Maybe COVID has changed to be more cooperative with humanity (it's a good strategy for parasites to not kill their hosts).
Pathogens can benefit from evolving in ways that allow them to spread more easily, and sometimes that means not killing your host too soon. But transmissibility with COVID is highest before symptom onset, so death of the host never comes into play.
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world. There is absolutely no evidence for this variant being less pathogenic. It is quite likely that the milder outcomes observed with this variant so far are because of immunity generated by vaccines and prior infections. The idea that this will make vaccines less essential is a fanta…
It is the only endgame. The covid virus is not going away. Even if everyone on the planet suddenly got vaccinated simultaneously, the virus has an animal reservoir. Good news, selection pressure is for more-contagious and less-deadly. It will happen eventually, and then covid will be just another common cold.
> It is the only endgame. The covid virus is not going away. Even if everyone on the planet suddenly got vaccinated simultaneously, the virus has an animal reservoir.
You know that Smallpox was in cows (aka: Cowpox), right? We still wiped it out.
Smallpox, Measles, Polio. We've wiped out diseases before, and we can do it again if we so try. I'm frankly more flabbergasted that people don't even know the history of diseases and are so pessimistic about this subject...
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cases are absolutely relevant: they have been a lagging indicator for deaths the entire time. It will take another 2-3 weeks to see how the current spike in cases plays out in deaths. Hopefully Omicron actually is less lethal, but we'll see soon enough. As for your experience, it is not predictive or representative given the ~800,000 US deaths. Especially because you live in an admittedly very cautious area.
It's funny too - there's apparently no consideration given to "maybe I don't know anyone who's died because everyone in my community is so cautious".
That's a good point.
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#406I have a question for anyone who has a serious level of knowledge on virus evolution: As viruses evolve over time is there any correlation to severity - do they have trade offs as they evolve? I am hoping that it would be some kind of trade off that the virus makes in that it can spread more easily but not be as severe (I understand that it is unlikely nature requires a trade-off). I ask as my concern is that while t…
One thing that makes Covid-19 a bit different from other viruses that have trended towards milder infections is its long incubation time (while still being infectious). So it can already spread pretty easily even if it's killing those people, and thus there's not a lot of darwinian pressure to become milder. It might still trend towards that over time, but it will probably be slower at it than other viruses, and thus…
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Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, logically speaking, we never needed vaccines, since some percentage of the human race will survive COVID regardless. The question always was just whether you can improve your own odds of staying healthy. And so far that data seems to have been strongly in favor of vaccination of yourself and those around you, with further increased benefit demonstrated from opting for a booster shot. But still never being essen…
You seem to be interpreting "essential" as "essential for continued human existence", which is a pretty low bar. "Essential for maintaining public health", or "essential for preventing excess deaths" would be better interpretations. While vaccines are not essential for continued human existence, they are essential for maintaining public health and preventing excess deaths.
You could make the same argument for the common Flu.
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author of the study that the bad cat is trying to discredit wrote a long, persuasive rebuttal to the simplistic critiques he's been reading on Tyler Cowen's blog; https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/11/ja... They saw a significant reduction in covid presence in communities with more masking -- even though total masking was still only 40% in those communities -- which is very much in line with a…
It doesn't address the primary criticisms of the bad cat, and you should really read the comments on the article you linked, as well as they meta-analyses I provided on mask effectiveness when it comes to respiratory illnesses in healthcare and community settings. They don't work, at all, across decades of research and dozens of studies. They're not going to magically start working for COVID when they haven't worked…
> and you should really read the comments on the article you linked, as well as they meta-analyses I provided on mask effectiveness when it comes to respiratory illnesses in healthcare and community settings.
Unfortunately, Tyler Cowen's blog has worse Covid commentary than even HN does, which is pretty impressive given the amount of HCQ/Ivermectin/bioweapon conspiracy theorizing here.
> Surgical masks in medical settings are designed to protect from bacterial infections, not viral ones.
This is patently untrue.. you're not one of those "virus particles can fit through masks" people are you? As just one example of how obvious it is that masks protect against viruses in HCW from the last SARS outbreak;
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paying more attention to information in a peer-reviewed journal than information in a pseudonymous substack is not "cult-like faith." Of course the study could be wrong.
The study is not and has not passed peer review.
Hasn't it? Looks published to me. It has a doi and everything.
Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A mild strain of covid that is contagious, leads to natural immunity and doesn’t require a vaccine is an absolute win win for the world. There is absolutely no evidence for this variant being less pathogenic. It is quite likely that the milder outcomes observed with this variant so far are because of immunity generated by vaccines and prior infections. The idea that this will make vaccines less essential is a fanta…
Evidence so far: - Pathogenicity: Virtually no hospitalizations or deaths. There's only one reported death so far "with" Omicron, about which there are absolutely no details released whatsoever and which was rather suspiciously announced by the UK PM just before a vote. - Pathogenicity: all reports from SA say the symptoms are not only extremely mild, but don't actually match COVID symptoms at all. The first person t…
> Irrelevance of vaccines: in Denmark the percentage of Omicron cases that are vaccinated is the same as the overall vaccination rate, i.e. there's ~no impact of vaccines.
I see currently reported numbers of 75% and 81% for those rates respectively, which means unvaccinated people are over-represented by about 30% relative their percentage of the population. Now these numbers are still very new, and unreliable, have no confidence interval, and only for infection, not hospitalization. But I don’t think that difference would be irrelevant, unless it ceases to hold up after data is collected over the next few weeks.