South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

Post by snet0 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

alliao wrote: post #26

randomopining wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virus just wants to replicate and spread as much as possible. Sometimes the side effect of this is death etc. If this one spreads super fast, has generally more mild effects... it will ramp up faster, infect all, and may get more severe so that it can last longer in the host and spread more. But the combo of high infectiousness and more mild side effects might be a net negative for this one. If we get a good amount o…

super fast spread even with milder effects will still meant overwhelming healthcare capacity let's not even go near the notion that more infection means brewing more variants we've never entertained herd immunity for polio, why covid..

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 8:24 PM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #29

I was at Costco this morning (DFW) buying a big hunk of Prime Rib for Christmas Day dinner. No one either knows or cares anymore. I'm still wearing a mask for facial recognition purposes but I'm starting to feel weird considering no one else is wearing a mask anymore, not even the folks who look like they got one foot in the grave already. Omicron is already so yesterday it isn't even a memory.

Post by exdsq » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 8:24 PM UTC

tanseydavid wrote: post #53

volkse wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been discussed many times before - the issue with the SA data is that 80% of the population have been exposed to the virus (either had it or have been vaccinated) so the deaths not budging there can be very misleading for countries with lower vaccination rates.

Can anyone point to an official worldwide number of deaths attributable to Omicron?

Post by globalise83 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #21

nostromo wrote: post #13

The panic surrounding Omicron is absurd. Take a look at these two charts. Omicron cases spiked in SA. Deaths didn't budge. At all. https://i.imgur.com/TgRmz4F.png [1] Omicron is a good thing, if your baseline is Delta. But I'm still waiting for the US media stop hyperventilating about it. 1. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...

I saw some charts out of South Africa today showing that deaths are starting to rise with a three week delay. I'm optimistic that Omicron is less severe, but it's also possible that it's just taking a little longer than expected to start killing people.

Post by barbs » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

voxadam wrote: post #14

Am I the only one who reads these less than scientific articles as much more than wishful thinking? I mean, I hope this pandemic comes to a close as much as anyone but so many of the recent news articles about the omicron variant being our collective way out of this pandemic seem a bit premature. I understand the theory that viruses become more contagious and less deadly over time but is there an real, peer reviewed…