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Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#421

Post by defaultprimate »

mikeyouse wrote: post #408
defaultprimate wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 set…

I literally linked several meta-analyses that show it's patently true.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#422

Post by firmnoodle »

dragontamer wrote: post #404
stickfigure wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dis…

Agreed. But I don't hear anyone talking about making a old style COVID vaccine that prevents infection, disease or transmission. That's what's different in this case. We don't currently have what we many of us used to think of as a vaccine.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#423

Post by unmole »

selectodude wrote: post #399
unmole wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the charts for India?

Have you seen the charts for literally the rest of the world? You're picking an outlier as proof that its not seasonal. Others may say it's the exception that proves the rule.

> Have you seen the charts for literally the rest of the world?

I just did. There are no discernable spikes coinciding with cold weather for India, Brazil, the UK or Russia.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#424

Post by GeekyBear »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #373
GeekyBear wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The big question is whether the disease is genuinely milder, or whether the mild cases are just a consequence of the virus infecting people who are partially immune The initial data says that even though South Africa has a much lower vaccination rate, omicron is mild. From today: > lack of high death and hospitalization rates, despite the fact that Omicron has spread at breakneck speed across the country and account…

It’s believed that 70%+ of South Africa have already had covid, and there is substantial protection from severe cases on reinfection.

Is there any reason to believe that having a large number of previously infected individuals is unique to South Africa?

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#425

Post by AlexandrB »

sokoloff wrote: post #389
fullshark wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm expecting this crap to be a thing until we have a winter of excess deaths at or below Pre-Covid levels. Once that is observed I think people will finally move on. It sounds like this is still going to result in deaths, so I am now expecting year three of this crap. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-deat... I think eventually that winter will come, but the process will be gradua…

At some point, it seems like you have to weigh the lifetime risk of dying from COVID against the loss of life enjoyment and decide “We shouldn’t subject ourselves to another 1.25% of our lifetime of this (whatever “this” is) to lower the fatality rate from Y to X.” (If you’re lowering from 5% to 1%, that trade makes sense for even severe social restrictions. If you’re lowering it from 0.5% to 0.4%, that trade makes n…

I think it's better to consider some kind of "casualty rate" that includes long COVID, rather than just the "fatality rate". At the moment it's possible some people may never fully recover full function after contracting COVID even though they survive.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#426

Post by ineedasername »

defaultprimate wrote: post #387
mikeyouse wrote: post #380

Earlier 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…

you should really read the comments on the article you linked

Even if I disagree with TC on something, I still think he's pretty much intellectually honest, i.e., is not beholden to one political agenda or another simply because it matches his world view or completely unaware of competing data. And he often does a good job in striking a balance on ideology & practicality (State Capacity Libertarianism comes to mind)

However the comments section on MR are often a hot mess of cherry picking or misinformation parroted back by people trying emulate TC's style without anything approaching his intellectual rigor.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#427

Post by thaumasiotes »

ASinclair wrote: post #394
stickfigure wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Good news, selection pressure is for more-contagious and less-deadly What selection pressure exists to make it less-deadly? It takes weeks for the virus to kill people and they are most infectious early on.

The same selection pressure that applies to every other disease. Symptoms make you less likely to spread. Fatalities make you much less likely to spread. Most of the diseases you carry are completely asymptomatic.

This is why island populations all get sick when a ship comes in.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#428

Post by hpoe »

pwthornton wrote: post #360
roody15 wrote: post #175

This 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.

Depends on your definition of require. The flu doesn't require a vaccine, but if we had much higher vaccine uptake each year we would save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. It's possible that with really high vaccine uptake and other measures we could make the flu a lot more rare. If we end up with a version of COVID that is less deadly and then we decide to not take vaccines seriously, we'll end up with endemic…

If the choice is between that and permanent "emergency powers" for all levels of government to continue to panic and scare monger and implement things like vaccine passports, required immunizations as a condition of employment, the destruction of SMB and the demonization and hostility towards anyone that doesn't trust The Science (while shutting all discussion down about The Science because the plebs aren't smart enough to understand The Science)

Then yes yes I will take that.

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#429

Post by anonfornoreason »

akamaka wrote: post #58
croes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget this part: "South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection" So it could simply be that the mild cases were previously infected, what happens to an unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story.

South Africa’s excess deaths amount to 1 out of every 200 people. The most vulnerable have already been removed from the sample set. I’m going to wait for severity data from where I live, because that’s what matters.

every year more vulnerable people are added to that set as population ages, gets fatter, has more advanced coronary or metabolic disease, etc.

not trying to contradict here I think it will be less each year.

maybe governments will even start telling people their dirt and exercise choices are exacerbating this disease!

Re: Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe Covid: study

#430

Post by dragontamer »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #419
dragontamer wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dis…

> You know that Smallpox was in cows (aka: Cowpox), right? It seems unlikely that many cows caught smallpox, given the prevalence of cowpox. Cowpox is a different disease, and was the first vaccine, after which the very concept of "vaccination" is named. Milkmaids had long been known for their immunity to smallpox. If smallpox had been in cows, milkmaids would have been known for universal smallpox exposure instead.…

> Cowpox is a different disease

That conferred immunity to smallpox. Which makes it about as "different" as Omicron is to Delta or COVID19.

In any case, Cowpox is case-positive proof of animal reservoirs of smallpox.

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