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New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

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Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#71

Post by kaba0 »

timr wrote: post #9
miohtama wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? We have managed to clear out measles, so we should be able to stop COVID as well with high enough vaccination rates. Although this is not apples-to-apples comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles_vaccine

> We have managed to clear out measles No, we have not. In fact, there has been a rather significant resurgence in measles over the course of the last two years. One of the many side-effects of our reaction to Covid that is not properly accounted. https://www.who.int/news/item/10-11-2021-global-progress-aga... https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/11/1077482 https://www.outbreakobservatory.org/outbreakthursday-1/3/11/...

It is in great part due to idiot anti-vaxxers…

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#72

Post by ptr »

lokl wrote: post #6
bingohbangoh wrote: post #2

Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? I hate, __hate__ this constant fear of a lockdown. Hell, a good part of europe is in lockdown right now. I get that the lockdown is being haphazardly enforce for those countries who've decided on it but I dislike these even being rules on the books. Leave me the hell alone! If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes?…

According to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard, as of now, Sweden has had 15,145 deaths; Norway has had 1,050 deaths; Denmark 2,863; Finland 1,309. With populations from Wikipedia (10,402,070 for Sweden; 5,402,171 for Norway; 5,850,189 for Denmark; 5,536,146 for Finland), this yields deaths per 1,000 people of: Sweden 1.456 Norway 0.194 Denmark 0.489 Finland 0.236 Saying Sweden has "just survived" doesn't capture…

Not saying it’s the reason, but Sweden has higher urbanization than its neighbors. The country also has more people who don’t speak the native language. Belgium has a similar population size but more deaths (27k).

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#73

Post by kaba0 »

splittingTimes wrote: post #13

For a fully waxed person, Would it make sense to try to get infected by Delta to build more immunity to fight off that omicron thing? With so many significant variations on the spike protein the vaccines will be no help..

There are already second generation vaccines though, which are more effective against these new variants.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#74

Post by rel2thr »

> Because the change is small, an updated vaccine doesn’t need Phase III trials and/or regularity approval. So, this whole process should take a max of 6 weeks.

This appears to be incorrect, Moderna says it needs 60 days to just get into trials (https://twitter.com/megtirrell/status/1464225637590310938) . The FDA has not said what the approval process will look like, but its safe to say it will be non-zero

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#75

Post by flunhat »

timr wrote: post #52
actually_a_dog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect. Here is a review of 19 RCTs showing that masks work: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7191274/

This review says that none of the community mask trials showed a significant effect. It says that 3/6 studies on respirators in medical settings had no significant effect. It said that 3/5 studies for masks as source control showed no significant effect. Here's a review of every mask study ever performed: https://www.cato.org/working-paper/evidence-community-cloth-... Here's a summary written by the same author, in c…

Why is everyone you're referencing -- and for that matter, you too -- so damn hysterical? Vinay Prasad, case in point:

> When democratically elected systems transform into totalitarian regimes, the transition is subtle, stepwise, and involves a combination of pre-planned as well as serendipitous events. Indeed, this was the case with Germany in the years 1929-1939, where Hitler was given a chance at governing, the president subsequently died, a key general resigned after a scandal and the pathway to the Fuhrer was inevitable.

It's a mask & a vaccine, not the beginning of the Third Reich. The fact that your sources can't see the two as different things (and not as part of some slippery slope), tells me they've already arrived at a conclusion and will ignore all contrary evidence.

I know masks & vaccines feel oppressive -- but facts simply do not concern themselves with your feelings. There is a world of difference between the Third Reich and public health measures to slow the tide of preventable deaths. To be honest, I can't believe I'm having this debate here.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#76

Post by readflaggedcomm »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #14
gfodor wrote: post #3

> Travel bans are not evidence-based: It may seem like travel bans for individual countries are a necessary step, but I cannot stress enough that they do not work. This one point compromised the article for me. The standard for “working”, like all measures, is to slow down the spread. We all know travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them. But all countries imposed travel bans and we ought to be co…

I agree with about 95% of this, but, I don't think "travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them." I think they got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them previously, targeting countries with you-know-what religion, for a political reason. Had it been just "we're going to reduce air traffic into the country to slow the spread of the virus," I don't think that would have been terribly controver…

It failed to apply to populous or notorious Muslim countries like Indonesia or Pakistan, only to those which Obama had previously put on a list. It got a bad name for political reasons, not for the facts of the executive order.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#77

Post by Mountain_Skies »

tgv wrote: post #50
dragontamer wrote: post #10

Look, I'm about as pro-vaccine, pro-lockdown, pro-mask as they come. But the hyperbolic reporting on this variant is not helpful. News articles in mainstream press are already wrong: WHO has named this Omicron (while many publications came out with Nu). This is a virus that takes weeks to months before a variant becomes dominant. You can afford to wait a day or two to get information correct before publishing. Edit:…

Why is a travel stop such problem? Travel can be resumed.

The countries impacted feel villainized and punished. In the future they might decide to not report their findings or other countries seeing these countries become pariahs may decide to not their findings of new variants, lest they be cutoff.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#78

Post by howmayiannoyyou »

bingohbangoh wrote: post #2

Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? I hate, __hate__ this constant fear of a lockdown. Hell, a good part of europe is in lockdown right now. I get that the lockdown is being haphazardly enforce for those countries who've decided on it but I dislike these even being rules on the books. Leave me the hell alone! If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes?…

> Does anybody think these variants will ever stop?

RNA viruses have high mutation rates and variants will never end in the same way that flu & common-cold variation continues. The more interesting question is how will our immune systems adapt and will vaccines continue to provide protection against severity of illness at the same time as they apply selective pressure that enhances viral transmissibility?

Of further interest is why Japanese and Taiwan infection and severity rates remain comparatively low and what - if any - role their openness to a certain anti-parasitic, protease inhibiting drug has played in their success.

Also of great interest is why aspiration isn't mandatory in the US to prevent the vaccine from entering the bloodstream (primarily the heart) rapidly and in large quantities.

Many unanswered questions.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#79

Post by tenuousemphasis »

flunhat wrote: post #45
timr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, we ought to be evidence-based about everything we have done: travel bans, masks, respirators, distancing, plexiglass, closing businesses, forcing healthy kids to wear masks in schools, forcing everyone to get vaccinated, rubber gloves in the grocery store. All of it. So far, our track record isn't that great. The two RCTs for masks and Covid showed minimal (if not zero) effect [1], and you can barely say the res…

> you can barely say the results out loud lest you get silenced by the angry mob Would you chill out? People are disagreeing with you & presenting evidence, not burning you at stake. When did everyone get so damn fragile??

I find that the sort of people who call others snowflakes end up being the biggest snowflakes of all.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#80

Post by Gigachad »

phonebucket wrote: post #21
bingohbangoh wrote: post #2

Does anybody think these variants will ever stop? I hate, __hate__ this constant fear of a lockdown. Hell, a good part of europe is in lockdown right now. I get that the lockdown is being haphazardly enforce for those countries who've decided on it but I dislike these even being rules on the books. Leave me the hell alone! If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes?…

> If we couldn't overcome it after a year of lockdowns, why is this gonna be the time it changes? Lockdowns are not about overcoming it; they're about saving lives. I think it's fair to say that the lockdowns saved quite a lot of them. Looking at how the death charts correlate with lockdown impositions might support this viewpoint.

Lockdowns don’t make any progress. They put everything on pause. But as soon as you unpause, all of those saved lives are at the same risk they were at before. And you can’t pause forever. Each lockdown becomes less and less effective as people stop caring.
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