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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

#671

Post by oneoff786 »

stnmtn wrote: post #666
oneoff786 wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By exponential, you mean there’s a steep part but you don’t really know the difference between exponential and logarithmic. The rapid slowdown of infections is FAR below 100% of people.

> Sure, there's a limit, but if we're looking at function that is exponential until it reaches an inflection point where there's simply less hosts to infect than possible... What do you think I meant by this? Do you think I believe that the rate of infection will keep going up literally exponentially until it hits 7 billion then turn flat, or do you think that by my usage of 'inflection point' maybe I had more nuance…

I took it to mean you’re claiming growth is exponential or nearly exponential until it nears 100% like a sigmoid function.

But that’s wrong. Growth stalls out much much earlier. It’s just not right to call disease spread exponential.

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

#672

Post by markdown »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #429
akamaka wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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

Don't worry, Joe Rogan is on the case!

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

#673

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

GeekyBear wrote: post #424
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

SA isn’t unique, but it’s the location of the study this post is about, so the stats there are relevant.

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

#674

Post by stnmtn »

oneoff786 wrote: post #671
stnmtn wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, there's a limit, but if we're looking at function that is exponential until it reaches an inflection point where there's simply less hosts to infect than possible... What do you think I meant by this? Do you think I believe that the rate of infection will keep going up literally exponentially until it hits 7 billion then turn flat, or do you think that by my usage of 'inflection point' maybe I had more nuance…

I took it to mean you’re claiming growth is exponential or nearly exponential until it nears 100% like a sigmoid function. But that’s wrong. Growth stalls out much much earlier. It’s just not right to call disease spread exponential.

In a math classroom, you are right. But when we're in a context of talking about the disease on an internet forum, you are being needlessly pedantic and extremely nitpick-y if you expect people to describe the ways infections grows as "similar to a sigmoid function" rathan than the well-understood and extremely common "exponential growth" term.

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

#675

Post by cmonfeat »

oldstatsstudent wrote: post #228

Did anyone notice the comparison of vaccine-based immunity to natural immunity in the findings within the source PR [0]? With a little work, you can compare them. If we convert the measure used in finding 2 (relative risk of reinfection) to finding 1's (relative protection), then the study found that natural immunity from Delta variant gives 60% protection against Omicron; roughly double the vaccine's protection. Unf…

Given the high percentage of the population in SA who has already had an infection, there's probably a significant chunk of people in finding 1 who also already had natural immunity. That's probably going to make it difficult to use these results to compare vaccine-based immunity to natural immunity, right?

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

#676

Post by Animats »

Moderna is working on a vaccine targeting the Omicron variant for 2022.[1]

The mRNA vaccine technology is "agile". There's a workflow from sequencing a virus to generating a candidate vaccine. It only took two days to generate the original COVID-19 vaccine. It's the clinical testing in small, then large groups that's the time consuming part.

Also, the inhaled vaccines are entering clinical testing.[2] It's not like we're stuck with the original vaccines.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/28/moderna-says-an-omicron-vari...

[2] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e1637976-5c3f-11ec-90d0-c...

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

#677

Post by dragontamer »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #654
dragontamer wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its all relative. Measles is 3x more infectious than even Delta. Current vaccines are 95% effective against the original strain, 60% vs Delta, unknown vs Omicron. You boost the vaccine however, and you're back to 90% efficacy vs Delta, and like 75% vs Omicron.

The difference isn't as minor as I think you're suggesting. Compared to 95% efficacy, 90% efficacy means twice as many vaccinated people get sick and 75% efficacy means five times as many get sick. I don't see how eradication programs would work with such a differential, and (relatedly) I don't know of any experts who think it's feasible to eradicate Covid with current technology.

> I don't see how eradication programs would work with such a differential

Its all about R0. If the efficacy (and compliance) is above the 1 / R0 rate, then eradication is possible.

As its "efficacy times compliance", the number we wish to maximize is the smaller number. Efficacy may have dropped to 60% (double shot vs Delta), but a 3rd booster brings the efficacy back up to 90%.

Compliance however, is stuck around 60% in the USA in general, and a large number of people are refusing to get the booster. As such, compliance is the number we need to work on right now.

--------

Going from 90% to 99% vaccine efficacy barely does anything, because our vaccine compliance numbers are so damn low.

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

#678

Post by JamesBarney »

___q wrote: post #59
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.

> unvaccinated without prior infection is a different story. No it's not, the study specifically mentions "the relative reduction of risk conferred by prior proven COVID-19 infection" https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

The link you specified specifically says that previous infection could be why Omicron appears less severe..

> “Epidemiological tracking shows a steep trajectory of new infections, indicating Omicron’s rapid spread, but so far with a flatter trajectory of hospital admissions, possibly indicating lower severity,” explains Dr Noach. “This lesser severity could, however, be confounded by the high seroprevalence levels of SARS CoV-2 antibodies in the general South African population, especially following an extensive Delta wave of infections.”

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

#679

Post by liber8 »

Animats wrote: post #676

Moderna is working on a vaccine targeting the Omicron variant for 2022.[1] The mRNA vaccine technology is "agile". There's a workflow from sequencing a virus to generating a candidate vaccine. It only took two days to generate the original COVID-19 vaccine. It's the clinical testing in small, then large groups that's the time consuming part. Also, the inhaled vaccines are entering clinical testing.[2] It's not like w…

According to reports, the original BioNTech vaccine was developed in a matter of hours: https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-biontech-vaccine-desi... Moderna's was done in two days.

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

#680

Post by dham »

kenjackson wrote: post #304
dham wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughl...

OK, that says something slightly different. Because 42% of the US population is obese, even if Covid hospitalized completely at random you'd expect 42% of those admitted to be obese (not that obesity is the cause of 42% of admissions). They saw 50% admitted were obese. This implies that being obese increases the risk of hospitalization by ~20%. But still useful data. Thanks.

I mean I think it says something very blunt. If you're not overweight you probably don't need 5 boosters and you can probably go about your day and play the odds. People still know how to play the odds right, they do it everyday? It's funny to me people are so scared of Covid when they're going to die of Heart Disease or Cancer.

There's just no nuance in any conversation related to Covid.

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