Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Omicron Update, Dec 2

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 118 posts

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#71

Post by tremon »

adam_arthur wrote: post #68
tremon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not referencing any data at all, just handwaving at it. You're only comparing the raw infection rates without taking into account the amount of mitigating measures such as mask mandates, work-from-home orders, and closing of schools, restaurants and bars. Last year's numbers were all achieved with very stringent lockdowns and school closures; pretty much all those countries returned to classroom teaching in Se…

I stated that case counts today are roughly equivalent to pre-vaccine times in most countries This is called verifiable data. Also the numbers in the US south are roughly equivalent to the east/west that had much more stringent lockdown, mask, and vaccine measures. If these policies had any significant impact, you would see a large disparity in outcomes of TX, FL, vs NY, CA. This is also verifiable data. Prove me wro…

You stated that "We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts". This is called making misleading claims.

There's numerous confounding factors in these numbers that you conveniently ignore, and that you keep ignoring even when they're pointed out to you. This is called doubling-down on an indefensible position.

Then, instead of defending why your use of those numbers is scientifically sound, you accuse others of having "firmly held beliefs". This is called a personal attack.

And lastly, instead of doing the hard work to show why your conclusion is scientifically sound, you expect the other party to disprove your argument for you. This is called trolling.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#72

Post by zamalek »

shmatt wrote: post #19
sjwalter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And omicron arose in vaccinated people and traveled the world in the respiratory tracts of the fully vaxxed.

SA is only 25% vaxxed. Perfect ground for new mutations

SA is not known to be the origin of the variant, it is merely the first country that sequenced it. It is definitely a fertile ground for mutations, though.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#73

Post by zamalek »

beagle3 wrote: post #56
tremon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission. No one ever claimed it would, except for the anti-vax crowd. Infection, transmission, and immunity aren't binary, and over 99% of domain specialists are in agreement on that. So why would you open your post with that claim?

GP I was responding to claimed SA was a breeding ground for variants. Unless he has a new explanation different from the other hundreds of people with this claim, it eventually rests on a non leaky vaccine. And that’s why I started with this claim. Now, if you have an explanation as to why SA would be a better breeding ground for variants, I would love to hear it. If you read my post in context, you would likely have…

This is not news on how vaccines work. Even the smallpox vaccine had this problem, difference is: nearly everyone got vaccinated.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#74

Post by adam_arthur »

simonh wrote: post #65
adam_arthur wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has roughly equivalent covid deaths per capita as the USA, where vast parts of the country never locked down and still by and large don't wear masks or get vaccinated. Did the stricter lockdowns make a difference in the end?

Were demographically and geographically completely different. Our population is much denser, more like a populous US state than a sprawling continental giant. People used to compare virus control in the US to places like Singapore and New Zealand, as though their ability to control the virus has any lessons that are realistically applicable. We were hammered early on because we are very highly connected with the rest…

Yes, vaccines mitigate the impact of the virus on individual health outcomes.

They likely also have some marginal impact on transmissibility.

But the data shows pretty clearly that the effect on reduction in transmissibility is quite low, or else there would be an obvious relationship in the data in infection rate vs vaccine uptake... Which clearly there isn't. If you believe otherwise, please share data proving some macro effect of reduced case counts correlated with vaccine uptake.

There's nothing political about what I'm saying. I am arguing against policies that are not backed by the data or science.

People proposing policies that are not evidence based are the political ones.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#75

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

tgv wrote: post #37
rossdavidh wrote: post #14

The graph showing Omicron outcompeting Delta is, I think, actually good news. The worse condition would be if they don't even compete, i.e. Omicron was so different that having either Delta or Omicron wouldn't make you immune from the other. The pretty abrupt decline in Delta as Omicron ramps up, suggests pretty strongly that they do compete. I think this one might be The One. Everyone will be immune soon, perhaps, o…

Yeah, but only if it's milder than Delta, of course. This was my initial hope: if the virus mutates so quickly, it could mutate itself out of existence after a while by becoming very contagious but as strong as a common cold. Of course, once this happens, people will forget it ever happened and ignore the next warning signals.

The other side of that is that, given the long time COVID takes to kill someone and the amount of time they are infectious before that, it doesn't have much of a reason to become less deadly. Sure, it could mutate by chance to become more benign, but if it's communicable for twoish weeks, including while asymptomatic, then stops being communicable, and then kills the host what does it matter evolutionarily speaking that the host died? I don't think there's any pressure on COVID to become less deadly.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#76

Post by spurgu »

simonh wrote: post #22
adam_arthur wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone done the math on whether these lockdown policies have produced objectively better outcomes over the long term? Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Especially when you consider economic consequences, which also inflicts very real pain and suffering on the populace. Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all in…

Widespread vaccination dramatically reduces the rate at which the virus spreads, by more than 80%. It's not a binary does/doesn't stop spreading. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z Vaccination rates in the US have been abysmal by developed world status, precisely because so many of you don't think vaccination works. It does work to dramatically slow spreading, but only if enough people take it up.

No it actually does not really stop spread to any significant degree (which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere). It just makes the symptoms milder.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#77

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #5
draw_down wrote: post #2

Related: > Dr ANGELIQUE COETZEE, the doctor who alerted the world to the Omicron Covid variant, says we are over-reacting to the threat https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10256373/Dr-ANGEL...

That's because the news media does not make money on rational and level headed takes, and the people in power do not maintain power with rational and level headed takes. Threat level ORANGE!

Is the assumption that those in positions of power in various governments are just watching the news, so that's why they chose to take more drastic actions with this one, even though Delta raised similar flags with the media but much less action was taken?

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#78

Post by spurgu »

junon wrote: post #29
adam_arthur wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone done the math on whether these lockdown policies have produced objectively better outcomes over the long term? Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Especially when you consider economic consequences, which also inflicts very real pain and suffering on the populace. Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to have made any difference at all in…

> Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.

Are you serious? Most of Europe at least is at numbers that would've created herd immunity with the alpha variant (had the vaccine actually stopped transmission). I'd say that's pretty widespread.

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#79

Post by spurgu »

taylodl wrote: post #69
adam_arthur wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never disputed that vaccines mitigate effect of the virus. It's clear that they do, which will limit hospitalizations. I am disputing that lockdowns have led to any discernable difference in outcomes over the long run in regards to case counts. New Zealand may be the special case where they were able to actually completely halt inbound travel. But obviously their situation doesn't generalize.

Lockdowns were implemented to prevent the collapse of the medical system. Lockdowns have been repealed with the advent of vaccines. Why? Because those vaccinated who get COVID get much milder cases and don't typically require hospitalization, and for the few that do, they don't require ICU. Lockdowns weren't implemented to reduce case counts per se, they were implemented to prevent medical system collapse. The vaccin…

Hospitals have never been anywhere near collapse in most places though. Currently in Finland for example there's currently hysteria about the hospital capacity, whereas in actuality the issue is that some non-critical surgery would need to be postponed. It's far from "collapsing".

Re: Omicron Update, Dec 2

#80

Post by jsnell »

rossdavidh wrote: post #14

The graph showing Omicron outcompeting Delta is, I think, actually good news. The worse condition would be if they don't even compete, i.e. Omicron was so different that having either Delta or Omicron wouldn't make you immune from the other. The pretty abrupt decline in Delta as Omicron ramps up, suggests pretty strongly that they do compete. I think this one might be The One. Everyone will be immune soon, perhaps, o…

You are misreading the graph. The y axis is a percentage of total infections, not absolute number of infections. You can't tell from it whether the number of Delta infections is down, steady, or even up.
Post reply on HN