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Tags Coronavirus , vaccination , vaccines

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Old 30th November 2021, 03:44 PM   #481
zooterkin
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Originally Posted by Chris_Halkides View Post
Or a cocktail of an inhibitor of the proofreading exonuclease and one of the nucleoside analogs. I need to get cracking on this...
The what?
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Old 30th November 2021, 04:04 PM   #482
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
If omicron escapes the vaccine strongly, I think you can throw all the vaccines in the bin, because it will just evolve further, and with a conservative 6-month lag to get vast numbers of vaccines out, we will be doing no more than chasing Covid's tail forever.

Seems to me that a much more important tool will be Paxlovid. As a protease inhibitor targeting the spikes, it should work against any form of Covid, and it might well end up that we fight the virus more with drugs than vaccines.
I think you might be overstating things. First of all, we should probably wait and see, but even if the vaccines are less effective against the new variant it doesn’t mean that they will do nothing.

It seems to me the problem has been not getting them around the world. If you don’t do that, THEN you have more chance of the virus mutating to escape the virus.

Surely the smartest thing to do is to keep vaccinating until we know more and not rely on treating the illness or using even less well-attested medication.
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Old 30th November 2021, 04:24 PM   #483
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Our Scottish outbreak of omicron seems associated with a party (with no identifiable African link). So certainly highly transmissible, and in country transmission occurring in Scotland. Most of the infected were young and double vaccinated, including one person who was both double vaccinated and had been recently (> 30 days before) infected with delta. So it seems to be transmissible despite vaccination and prior infection with delta. All our outbreak were young so low risk for serious disease anyway, but no cases of serious illness. This does not mean in an unvaccinated person it is less virulent than delta or alpha, it just means if you are young (<40yr) and doubly vaccinated your risk of serious illness with omicron is not high.
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Old 30th November 2021, 04:27 PM   #484
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
If omicron escapes the vaccine strongly, I think you can throw all the vaccines in the bin, because it will just evolve further, and with a conservative 6-month lag to get vast numbers of vaccines out, we will be doing no more than chasing Covid's tail forever.

Seems to me that a much more important tool will be Paxlovid. As a protease inhibitor targeting the spikes, it should work against any form of Covid, and it might well end up that we fight the virus more with drugs than vaccines.
I mean it is not as if it could develop a mutation making it resistant to a protease inhibitor? Certainly as Chris says you want to be using combination chemotherapy rather than a single agent to minimise the risk of escape mutations.
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Old 30th November 2021, 04:50 PM   #485
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Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
I think you might be overstating things. First of all, we should probably wait and see, but even if the vaccines are less effective against the new variant it doesn’t mean that they will do nothing.
Gee, it's almost like I didn't just post the link to BioNTech saying just that their vaccine is very likely to continue to protect against severe disease.

And if you read my post carefully, you'll see it starts with an "if". That should signify that I'm discussing what happens if that comes to pass.

Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
It seems to me the problem has been not getting them around the world. If you don’t do that, THEN you have more chance of the virus mutating to escape the virus.
I'm beginning to see this "vaccinate everyone, everywhere" as pure red herring.

We aren't vaccinating under 5s, so there's 10% of the population for starters. Add to that the 10% absolute refuseniks, and then you have the issue of vaccinating people in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenstan, and that's before you tell me how you're going to deliver vaccines to the >90% of Africans who haven't been vaccinated.

We need to face up to the fact that vaccination isn't actually an endgame. They're great at stopping deaths, but they're not the nail in Covid's coffin.

Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
Surely the smartest thing to do is to keep vaccinating until we know more and not rely on treating the illness or using even less well-attested medication.
Obviously, in places where vaccines are available.

Originally Posted by Planigale View Post
I mean it is not as if it could develop a mutation making it resistant to a protease inhibitor? Certainly as Chris says you want to be using combination chemotherapy rather than a single agent to minimise the risk of escape mutations.
Sure - I'm not a doctor or scientist and I'll take your two opinions as much better informed than me!
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Old 30th November 2021, 05:22 PM   #486
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proofreading function of nsp14

Originally Posted by zooterkin View Post
The what?
ExoN (nsp14) has the function of checking for mistakes as RNA is being polymerized. Suppose that the polymerase makes a mistake and puts an A (adenosine) where (by the Watson-Crick rules) it is supposed to put a G. The function of the exonuclease is to remove the A by hydrolysis, then step aside and let the polymerase put a G in and then keep adding more nucleotides. The polymerase is the writer of the growing strand, and the exonuclease (ExoN; nsp14) is the proofreader.

An exonuclease act at one end of a nucleic acid, using water to break (hydrolyze) a bond. Most RNA viruses do not have this enzyme, but coronaviruses do. A number of antiviral compounds are analogs of nucleosides, and they work in slightly different ways stop RNA polymerization or to make it error-prone. Some are ineffective against coronaviruses. At least one analog (Ribavirin) is chopped back off by nsp14. One way that a nucleoside analog might evade being removed by nsp14 is if the polymerase adds another base first, thus shielding the analog from nsp14. As long as the now internalized analog can still disrupt RNA replication in some way, it will be successful. I had hoped that Remdesivir might do so. See this link. Unfortunately, molnupiravir's ability to fight this disease is not looking as good, as a previous comment of mine indicated. That is why I was thinking about how one might inhibit this exonuclease and combine it with a nucleoside analog. To the best of my knowledge, there is no human counterpart to nsp14 most RNA polymerases do not proofread, unlike DNA polymerases. "The exoribonuclease function of ExoN 3ʹ–5ʹ is a central player in a variety of essential life‐cycle processes for coronaviruses and has made many previously active antiviral compounds ineffective against CoVs. ExoN is a logical therapeutic target for new technologies in genomics." link
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Old 30th November 2021, 09:11 PM   #487
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Doc in Israel becomes their third case of omicron and transmitted it to another to make the fourth case.

What a mess! Came back from a conference in London. With a mask and 3 #Pfizer vaccines I managed to get #Omicron (case #3 in Israel).

https://twitter.com/maor_elad/status...00588314791947

Neg PCR test before leaving and upon return to Israel. Went to work and infected another doc. They are both doing well so far. -CNN story.
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Old 30th November 2021, 09:41 PM   #488
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Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee Meeting Briefing Document

Molnupiravir

https://www.fda.gov/media/154421/download

Efficacy against hospitalization 30%, down from earlier 50% estimate. However, only 1 death v 9 in the placebo grp.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/26/...ks-covid-pill/
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Old 1st December 2021, 12:58 AM   #489
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Gee, it's almost like I didn't just post the link to BioNTech saying just that their vaccine is very likely to continue to protect against severe disease.

And if you read my post carefully, you'll see it starts with an "if". That should signify that I'm discussing what happens if that comes to pass.



I'm beginning to see this "vaccinate everyone, everywhere" as pure red herring.

We aren't vaccinating under 5s, so there's 10% of the population for starters. Add to that the 10% absolute refuseniks, and then you have the issue of vaccinating people in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenstan, and that's before you tell me how you're going to deliver vaccines to the >90% of Africans who haven't been vaccinated.

We need to face up to the fact that vaccination isn't actually an endgame. They're great at stopping deaths, but they're not the nail in Covid's coffin.



Obviously, in places where vaccines are available.



Sure - I'm not a doctor or scientist and I'll take your two opinions as much better informed than me!
Throw the vaccines in the bin or try to get as many people vaccinated as possible? I go for the latter.
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Old 1st December 2021, 01:35 AM   #490
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Interesting thread here on Omicron from Kristian Andersen who has returned to Twitter after being hounded off it by the lab leak fanatics.

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen/sta...629821442?s=21
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Old 1st December 2021, 03:13 AM   #491
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post

As Moderna says openly its vaccines may be worthless...
They've said no such thing.
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Old 1st December 2021, 09:58 AM   #492
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Originally Posted by zooterkin View Post
They've said no such thing.
May as well have: https://www.ft.com/content/27def1b9-...6-72e432e0838f

Quote:
...much less effective... There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level...we had with [the] delta [variant]... This is not going to be good
Meanwhile, claims coming out of Israel that efficacy against severe disease remains very strong: https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wel...tuesday-687392

The only they could possibly have data from is RSA, and given the close relationship of the two countries, I'd say it's possible they have an early look, but I'd think it's very soon to know the levels of protection they're claiming.

Still, encouraging. Those T cells look to be the key.
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Old 1st December 2021, 02:36 PM   #493
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
May as well have: https://www.ft.com/content/27def1b9-...6-72e432e0838f



Meanwhile, claims coming out of Israel that efficacy against severe disease remains very strong: https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wel...tuesday-687392

The only they could possibly have data from is RSA, and given the close relationship of the two countries, I'd say it's possible they have an early look, but I'd think it's very soon to know the levels of protection they're claiming.

Still, encouraging. Those T cells look to be the key.
The CEO or Moderna only said the effectiveness against such a different spike is likely reduced. Not worthless. That is spinning things too far..

And yes. Of course T cells are key..
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Old 1st December 2021, 04:39 PM   #494
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I'm not sanguine about Omicron. The damned thing continues to grow like Kudzu with an exponential 4x/week if not higher in SA. Further the fraction of tests coming back positive is now over 16% more than doubling in a week. This indicates the actual Covid-19 incidence is growing even faster than the cases indicate. It also means they aren't just expanding testing in search of Omicron. The growth rate is clearly higher than any previous wave there including when Delta hit. And this is with a majority of the population previously infected and a quarter vaccinated.

As for virulence, jury's still out. Hospitalizations are up but the case ramp is so fast it's hard to model. Generally, about 5% of cases in most of the West are hospitalized. However, the age distribution in SA skews much younger so I would expect maybe around 3%. What I don't have is a distribution of time of first symptoms/positive test to hospitalization. I believe the median is a bit over 1 week. But I need a distribution day by day to model it. Could be anywhere from milder to just as bad as Delta.
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Old 1st December 2021, 05:16 PM   #495
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
I'm not sanguine about Omicron. The damned thing continues to grow like Kudzu with an exponential 4x/week if not higher in SA. Further the fraction of tests coming back positive is now over 16% more than doubling in a week. This indicates the actual Covid-19 incidence is growing even faster than the cases indicate. It also means they aren't just expanding testing in search of Omicron. The growth rate is clearly higher than any previous wave there including when Delta hit. And this is with a majority of the population previously infected and a quarter vaccinated.

As for virulence, jury's still out. Hospitalizations are up but the case ramp is so fast it's hard to model. Generally, about 5% of cases in most of the West are hospitalized. However, the age distribution in SA skews much younger so I would expect maybe around 3%. What I don't have is a distribution of time of first symptoms/positive test to hospitalization. I believe the median is a bit over 1 week. But I need a distribution day by day to model it. Could be anywhere from milder to just as bad as Delta.
Yep. We just don’t know. I thought one of the interesting theories that was raised by Andersen in that thread is that it is possibly caused by spillback (or reverse zoonosis from humans to animals) then a subsequent spilllover again. This kind of dynamic would be really worrying as it would suggest a lot of possibility for subsequent spillovers that are far removed from what our vaccines and other meds can handle. Too soon to tell but that would be perhaps the worst case scenario.
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Old 1st December 2021, 05:17 PM   #496
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Pre-omicron, but numbers from Singapore show quite starkly that one you get above 90% vaccination, you can return to normal.

As long as omicron doesn't bust the vaccines, things are looking up!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3...gy-is-on-track
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Old 1st December 2021, 05:30 PM   #497
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Pre-omicron, but numbers from Singapore show quite starkly that one you get above 90% vaccination, you can return to normal.

As long as omicron doesn't bust the vaccines, things are looking up!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3...gy-is-on-track
Yes, which further underscores the importance of getting them around the world.
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Old 1st December 2021, 09:28 PM   #498
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Effectiveness and durability of protection against future SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred by COVID-19 vaccination and previous infection; findings from the UK SIREN prospective cohort study of healthcare workers March 2020 to September 2021

Preprint:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....29.21267006v1
Quote:
Background: Understanding the duration and effectiveness of infection and vaccine-acquired SARS-CoV-2 immunity is essential to inform pandemic policy interventions, including the timing of vaccine-boosters. We investigated this in our large prospective cohort of UK healthcare workers undergoing routine asymptomatic PCR testing.
This differs from other Ve vaccine studies because of the regular testing of all HCWs. As a result vaccine Ve against infection (not symptomatic) is significantly lower than other studies.

The surprise in this study is that prior infection confers greater immunity than either 1 or 2 dose vaccination. Note that boosters have not been measured. Table 2.

Prior infection plus either one or two vaccine doses provided the best protection. Table 3.
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Old 2nd December 2021, 12:20 AM   #499
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Pre-omicron, but numbers from Singapore show quite starkly that once you get above 90% vaccination and keep masking up, even toddlers, you can return to normal.

(...)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/3...gy-is-on-track

FTFY

A similar development can be seen in Cuba where everybody is also still masking up - and children are getting vaccinated, three jabs for everybody, and and vaccines against Omicron are being developed.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people: Cuba, Singapore
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people: Cuba, Singapore
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19: Cuba, Singapore
Population density per km2 should be taken into consideration: Singapore 8,358, Cuba 106.
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Old 2nd December 2021, 03:56 AM   #500
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SARS-CoV-2 sequences by variant, Nov 29, 2021 (Our World in Data)
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"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Old 2nd December 2021, 06:08 AM   #501
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Nice TWiV episode.

They criticize the punishing of South Africa for doing good work in sequencing the variant.

They tend towards the idea that we should just not freak out, and just get vaccinated.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.
I AGREE
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Old 2nd December 2021, 01:13 PM   #502
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SA case rates continue to roughly double every 3 days (over 4x growth per week). Same with positivity rate which is up to 22% today compared with 16% yesterday which means actual infections are growing even faster.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/latest-confir...december-2021/
Unbelievable.

Also:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/sta...80113487392769
NEW: today’s update from Gauteng, now on a log scale to better show current trajectories.

Steepness of lines shows how much faster the growth in cases and positivity is now vs past waves, and hospital admissions are now steepening too as the acceleration in cases feeds through.


And this indicating Omicron has 3 fold lower protection from prior infection:
https://twitter.com/miamalan/status/1466460836143239179
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Old 2nd December 2021, 03:03 PM   #503
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One bit of bright news - another treatment has been added to the armoury: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...gainst-omicron
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Old 2nd December 2021, 03:27 PM   #504
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
One bit of bright news - another treatment has been added to the armoury: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...gainst-omicron
Yep. At the rate this bugger is growing there really isn't much time for the Vax makers to tune and make available targetted vaxxes.

So we can hope the current vaxxes have some efficacy. At least against hospitalization and death. I've found zero info on vax efficacy so far but if probably provides some benefit.

In any case I'm ordering some N95s. I've been using kf94's so far but time to upgrade before the rush.

Lots of treatment possibilities near and they may be the big thing if vaxxes turn out to be marginal. Merck, Pfizer, fluvoxamine, etc. may have their big day. Is sotrovimab an IV drug. Supposidly monoclonals may be effective against Omicron too.
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Old 2nd December 2021, 03:38 PM   #505
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Yep. At the rate this bugger is growing there really isn't much time for the Vax makers to tune and make available targetted vaxxes.
I saw a comment by some scientist the other day that made a lot of sense.

The premise was that new vaccines will target the new spike strongly. If it mutates again, it might miss entirely, while vaccines that target the whole thing have a better chance all round.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
So we can hope the current vaxxes have some efficacy. At least against hospitalization and death. I've found zero info on vax efficacy so far but if probably provides some benefit.
Still too early to know, and while opinion is divided, I see lots of scientists saying they should.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
In any case I'm ordering some N95s. I've been using kf94's so far but time to upgrade before the rush.
We're just starting to take them off here.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
Lots of treatment possibilities near and they may be the big thing if vaxxes turn out to be marginal. Merck, Pfizer, fluvoxamine, etc. may have their big day. Is sotrovimab an IV drug. Supposidly monoclonals may be effective against Omicron too.
Sotrovimab is IV for 30 minutes, so they'll obviously choose who gets it.

Pfizer's take-at-home pill sounds a better option right now.
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Old 2nd December 2021, 04:55 PM   #506
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More from South Africa - it looks like omicron is doing what P1 did to Manaus in Brazil: infecting everyone who'd already had Covid.

Early indications are:

Previous infection offers minimal protection
May be less severe
High probability vaccines are working
Spreads much faster

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...frican-experts
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Old 2nd December 2021, 06:20 PM   #507
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
More from South Africa - it looks like omicron is doing what P1 did to Manaus in Brazil: infecting everyone who'd already had Covid.

Early indications are:

Previous infection offers minimal protection
May be less severe
High probability vaccines are working
Spreads much faster

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...frican-experts
Guardian story is a bit out of date. 16% positivity rating was yesterday (Dec. 1) . Today it's 22%. Monday a week ago it was 1% per the article.

While there is published evidence prior infection is 3x less protective against Omicron, it's still around 60%. There is actually prepint data on this. Since most of Omicron's mutations are in the spike, I would expect vaccine immunity to be slightly harder hit than prior infection immunity. All depends on how lucky we are. Only data so far is against prior infection.

I'm suspicious that the frequent statement "the vaccines are expected to provide protection against serious disease" is more just public messaging because Delta is the current killer and it might get some people to get themselves vaccinated. My guess is that vaxcines will provide some covid-19 immunity but somewhat lower than that of recovered cases because the vaccines are also targetting just the spike and that's the most mutated. Prior infection will likely target a broader range.

Financial Times has a piece on it too.
https://www.ft.com/content/df3738ab-...d-aa7eb75451a2
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Old 2nd December 2021, 10:24 PM   #508
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Omicron is going to be a huge problem for China.
Expect more, not less supply chain issues.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 12:57 AM   #509
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Well... to poke at this just because I stumbled across a link to it, here's a link for some Minnesota numbers.

COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Weekly Update

It's some data, at least. Predictably, unvaccinated numbers are wildly higher across the board.


Elsewhere, it seems that a Missouri DOH study requested by the Governor found that mask mandates were highly effective at reducing cases and even more effective at reducing deaths. So, what did the Republican Governor of Missouri do? Buried it, apparently. I'd comment more there, but those comments would likely be more suited to the US politics thread.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 02:09 AM   #510
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Guardian story is a bit out of date. 16% positivity rating was yesterday (Dec. 1) . Today it's 22%. Monday a week ago it was 1% per the article.
And given that there are now hundreds of cases in dozens of countries, we're at the stage of what happens, happens.

It's going to sweep across the globe.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
I'm suspicious that the frequent statement "the vaccines are expected to provide protection against serious disease" is more just public messaging because Delta is the current killer and it might get some people to get themselves vaccinated.
Well, at the rate of spread we'll know very quickly.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 04:56 AM   #511
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Guardian story is a bit out of date. 16% positivity rating was yesterday (Dec. 1) . Today it's 22%. Monday a week ago it was 1% per the article.

While there is published evidence prior infection is 3x less protective against Omicron, it's still around 60%. There is actually prepint data on this. Since most of Omicron's mutations are in the spike, I would expect vaccine immunity to be slightly harder hit than prior infection immunity. All depends on how lucky we are. Only data so far is against prior infection.

I'm suspicious that the frequent statement "the vaccines are expected to provide protection against serious disease" is more just public messaging because Delta is the current killer and it might get some people to get themselves vaccinated. My guess is that vaxcines will provide some covid-19 immunity but somewhat lower than that of recovered cases because the vaccines are also targetting just the spike and that's the most mutated. Prior infection will likely target a broader range.

Financial Times has a piece on it too.
https://www.ft.com/content/df3738ab-...d-aa7eb75451a2
Don't think for one moment that "natural immunity" survives encounter with omicron. Natural immunity is very weak if it exists at all and at fraction of induced immunity. And any antibody that is targeted on non-spike proteins is wasted one, because it will not prevent cell infection at all. (At best it is race between infection and destruction of virus particle)

Reminder: That's why vaccines target dominantly spike protein. it has very small mutation space before it no longer can bind to human ADE2.

Anyway, here's Derek Lowe's rundown on Omicron:
Omicron Time
ETA:
Quote:
Looking at the large number of Spike region mutations, Bedford believes that it's likely that Omicron is going to show greater immune evasion at the expense of transmissibility, and in fact it's possible that it might in the end be less transmissible than Delta is. If this story from Israel pans out, that might be what we're seeing.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 10:27 AM   #512
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mask information from the Show Me State

"State health department data alone can’t explain the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of mask mandates, without a fuller analysis of vaccination rates, behavior and time. But the data does show that in three of the four jurisdictions – Kansas City, St. Louis and St. Louis County – per capita case rates for the pandemic are in the bottom quarter of 118 local health jurisdictions, and per capita deaths are in the bottom third." Missouri Independent.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 10:53 AM   #513
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Originally Posted by Klimax View Post
Anyway, here's Derek Lowe's rundown on Omicron:
Quote:
Looking at the large number of Spike region mutations, Bedford believes that it's likely that Omicron is going to show greater immune evasion at the expense of transmissibility, and in fact it's possible that it might in the end be less transmissible than Delta is.
ETA:
I think that's a bit of a red herring right now, because even if it is less transmissible, delta isn't going to squeeze it out, and for two reasons:

Delta is waning
Omicron can infect people who have had Covid
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Old 3rd December 2021, 06:32 PM   #514
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Delta is waning
Omicron can infect people who have had Covid
And people who are vaccinated. This story from Norway is mind boggling. OTOH, it's not inconsistent with the unbelievable case ramp in South Africa.

Party where everyone was vaccinated:

Norway is seeing the world’s first omicron superspreader event after a party downtown Oslo last Friday. Of 120 healthy non-symptomatic fully vaccinated individuals with a negative test, two had recently returned from South Africa and turned out to be positive, omicron.

https://twitter.com/GANyborg/status/1466875096212119556

Understatement of the day:

Now some 80-90 of the 120 are PCR pos, 13 of these confirmed omicron, the rest waiting for sequencing results. Some of those infected w omicron were not at the party but present at the same restaurant that evening. Not looking good re transmissibility.

Omicron is a slam dunk. Delta doesn't come close to doing this.

Now's the time to hope that Omicron's virulence is very low and that vaccines provide some protection against severe disease. Because it's coming for everyone. Soon.

Of course hope isn't a plan.

Love this comment:
"I really hate this graph!"
https://twitter.com/rid1tweets/statu...28284445040645
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Old 3rd December 2021, 06:59 PM   #515
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Omicron is a slam dunk. Delta doesn't come close to doing this.
That's unreal. On those numbers, it must be close to the most-infectious virus ever known. As you say, world spread is a done deal.

I see the same thread contains this disturbing piece:

Quote:
They report a 75% case hospitalization rate among 0-2-year olds; among all the registered cases in this age group, about 75% are now hospitalized in SA.
Obviously, there are many unregistered cases, but Jesus H Christ!

While it's horror news for kids, it may gel with the "more infectious, less dangerous" theory, because it conforms to things like RSV.

Interesting times...
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Old 3rd December 2021, 07:24 PM   #516
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Interesting times...
Ain't that the truth. Well, one less unknown. Vaccines don't do squat in terms of Omicron infections.

The problem is that people are sick and tired of Covid-19. We are so done with Covid. But the virus didn't get the news and it's not done with us.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 07:53 PM   #517
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Airborne. Big time. Two quarantined in rooms across the hall from each other with strong evidence of aerosol spread.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/28/2/21-2422_article

Quote:
Viral genomes deduced from these 2 SARS-CoV-2‒positive cases differed only by 1 nt. Retrospective investigation, including closed-circuit television camera footage, confirmed that neither case-patient left their room during the quarantine period. No items were shared between rooms, and other persons did not enter either room. The only time the 2 quarantined persons opened their respective doors was to collect of food that was placed immediately outside each room door. The only other time they might have opened their doors would be for RT-PCRs, which were conducted in 3-day intervals. However, because these 2 case-patients arrived 1 day apart, it is unlikely that they would be tested on the same day. Airborne transmission across the corridor is the most probable mode of transmission.
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Old 3rd December 2021, 08:07 PM   #518
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Ain't that the truth. Well, one less unknown. Vaccines don't do squat in terms of Omicron infections.
I'll just re-post what I said four days ago:

Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
If omicron escapes the vaccine strongly, I think you can throw all the vaccines in the bin, because it will just evolve further, and with a conservative 6-month lag to get vast numbers of vaccines out, we will be doing no more than chasing Covid's tail forever.

Seems to me that a much more important tool will be Paxlovid. As a protease inhibitor targeting the spikes, it should work against any form of Covid, and it might well end up that we fight the virus more with drugs than vaccines.
We still have no data on whether the vaccine is offering protection against severe Covid, which I expect it to.

Meanwhile, let's get those drugs into doctors' surgeries and pharmacies as a matter of huge urgency.

Paxlovid is a simple oral medicine that can be taken at home.

I'm going to source some through the internet as soon as they get on the market - it's going to take months for our clowns to catch up. Pretty sure the drug dogs won't be trained to smell that out.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
The problem is that people are sick and tired of Covid-19. We are so done with Covid. But the virus didn't get the news and it's not done with us.
Hell yes.

Astonishing how things change. And people reckon a week is a long time in politics!
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Old 3rd December 2021, 08:10 PM   #519
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Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza View Post
Omicron is going to be a huge problem for China.
Expect more, not less supply chain issues.
Sorry, I meant to address that the other day.

Their plan of staying Covid-free just got blown out of the water, alright. No way is anyone stopping this sucker.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
Airborne. Big time. Two quarantined in rooms across the hall from each other with strong evidence of aerosol spread.
It appears to have reached measles level of infectiousness, which is the only other disease with that kind of action I can think of.

We can only hope the harm angle doesn't turn out to be "too bright, too early".
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Old 3rd December 2021, 08:25 PM   #520
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Meanwhile, let's get those drugs into doctors' surgeries and pharmacies as a matter of huge urgency.

Paxlovid is a simple oral medicine that can be taken at home.
Exactly!

Quote:
Astonishing how things change. And people reckon a week is a long time in politics!
Isn't it though. Facts are stubborn things.
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