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8th December 2021, 01:46 PM | #601 |
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Just a summary of available evidence so far:
https://www.nytimes.com/article/omic...s-variant.html Apparently neither vaccination nor prior infection seems to protect against reinfection with omicron, but there are some indications that it may be milder. Another key question is whether vaccination reduces severity of illness. I don't think we yet know the answer to that one. But the early cases reported say they only had mild symptoms. |
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8th December 2021, 01:57 PM | #602 |
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It's not 'neither vaccination nor prior infection seems to protect'. It's always question of 'how much'. Same with vaccine effectiveness. Same with symptoms. Only thing we know that compared to delta chance of reinfection is greater, protection from vaccine is lesser and symptoms are milder.
And we know already quite well it spreads 3 times faster, or even worse. But unless we know all these number to decent extent, we can't say if it will all result in end of Covid, apocalypse, or something between. I think the symptoms might be milder, but they wont be milder enough. Also the speed alone is a problem. Even if symptoms are like common flu, and death rate is zero .. omikron spread more than 10 times faster compared to flu. Bad year of flu can paralyze society with how many people are at home with it. With omikron like it is now, everyone on the planet will have it in 10 weeks. |
8th December 2021, 02:51 PM | #603 |
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UKHSA SGTF stats update
https://assets.publishing.service.go...ase_update.pdf Discussion and charts for spread of omicron via the SGTF proxy. Similar fast ramps to South Africa but about 2-3 weeks lag. Omicron summary chart: https://assets.publishing.service.go..._B.1.1.529.pdf Key points that we've all pretty much come to on this thread: The observed growth advantage may be due to immune evasion or transmissibility. It is most plausible that it is a combination of both. The current growth rate implies either a substantial change in one parameter or at least moderate change in both (for example if transmissibility is similar to Delta, immune evasion must be substantial). |
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8th December 2021, 06:21 PM | #604 |
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9th December 2021, 01:45 AM | #605 |
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First thing, can people bloody hell calm down? Some of you look like they are headless chicken or horror tropes vicitm running around.
Second, always remember that vaccine efficacy against covid was against hospitalization not infection! just because you get infected while vaccinated doesn't mean you have same probability of ending up in ICU as idiots who didn't get vaccinated! (It doesn't even mean you have same infectivity) Third, Ars Technica has good summary on current state of mRNA vaccine against Omicron: Omicron weakens vaccine protection, but boosters revive defenses, early data finds
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9th December 2021, 03:36 AM | #606 |
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Not sure who you are referring to. I thought we were having a calm, sober discussion here.
Quote:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/90445
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9th December 2021, 08:27 AM | #607 |
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Well I may be painting bleak picture. But you fight threat by preparing for it. And I for sure don't expect anything from the government. So I will just calmly restock for 3 months over the weekend.
Also I kinda like this apocalypse setting. I always like the idea I will live to see end of the civilization. You know the theory like one disaster increases chance for other disasters ? You heard about alleged Russian plans to invade Ukraine in the January ? Guess I'll make it 4 months |
9th December 2021, 08:35 AM | #608 |
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But now Omicron has arrived. So far, just one case, but ... Confirman presencia en Cuba de la variante Ómicron del SARS-COV-2 (Granma.cu, Dec 8, 2021) |
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9th December 2021, 10:12 AM | #609 |
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The Atheist and marting. Like throwing away vaccines and like. Quite few of their posts read like panic striken civilian in the middle of warzone.
Quote:
So it is possible I adopted somebody else interpretation of protocols and results and not original objective itself. |
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9th December 2021, 10:13 AM | #610 |
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9th December 2021, 10:52 AM | #611 |
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Can anyone point me to a good up-to-date discussion of South African hospitalization data?
The rate of increase seems perhaps to have slowed significantly. For example, comparing 3rd December (download, as linked to in previous post) with today shows (nationally) Now 4.8k in hospital, of which 662 on oxygen, 148 ventilated, vs 3rd december 3.2k, 461, 105. But looking at just Guateng province it is today 2306, 293, 68 vs. (3rd December) 1511, 225, 29. Not quite clear what to make of that, but it's not doubling every 3 days, which is something. |
9th December 2021, 11:48 AM | #612 |
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Keep in mind that hospitalization rates, while lagging, will start to rise with the same acceleration as the cases rose. For instance whether 1% or 5% of cases will result in hospitalization, the acceleration when it eventually occurs will be the same acceleration as the earlier cases experience.
So don't look at acceleration of hospiitalization as an indicator of virulence. Rather look at the expected hospitalization based on prior case dates and numbers. So far the indication is that omicron is not as virulent but it is a long way from certain. The problem with Omicron is the sheer, rapid growth. This will cause omicron cases in the UK to be at very high levels in the UK and EU by the end of the month and the USA a week or so later. And still growing. Unless Omicron does turn out to be materially less virulent there is going to be a hell of a load on healthcare with extra deaths on top because of the overload. The rapid growth is now well established and is concurrent with what I've been posting for almost 2 weeks. Virulence is not but early indications are good and I hope it pans out. |
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9th December 2021, 12:08 PM | #613 |
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Really? like what?
Quote:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2034577 Vaccine efficacy protocals were to establish efficacy against PCR positive infection, not hospitalization or death. And the vaccine proved to be highly efficacious. There were 9 people in the placebo group that developed severe disease while only 1 in the vaccinated group which, while having large CIs because of the small size, were also consistent with high efficacy against severe disease. Since then very large observational studies have confirmed high efficacy against severe disease while symptomatic and assymptomatic infection has waned over time hence the boosters. |
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9th December 2021, 01:25 PM | #614 |
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Utter poppycock.
You're not even cherry-picking, you're making it up. You've taken the throwing away vaccines out of context, where I was repeating what the vaccine manufacturer was hinting at. I've even already answered it once when someone else tried to make the same stupid claim about what I'd said, so here it is again:
Quote:
Overall, it is the best and most-informative thread ever at this forum, or its predecessor. We have experts and frontline doctors from around the world discussing the biggest event since WWII, along with interested and informed lay people, yet some others are still incapable of following it. |
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9th December 2021, 01:59 PM | #615 |
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What seems to set Klimax off is anything that indicates vaccines aren't doing much to stop transmission. Plenty of evidence vaccines reduce severe disease but efficacy against infection has been less than stellar with Alpha and Delta. Omicron is biting a big hole in what's left. Many superspreader events in the last weeks where everyone was double vaccinated.
Boosters may well restore some infection efficacy but data there is limited to a very short time frame. Boosters at this point in time aren't going to do much to keep Omicron from spreading unless you could somehow roll them out massively in the next couple weeks. People at risk are all the ones w/o vaccinations or some degree of prior infection immunity. In the USA over 50% of 188-50 y/o have already been infected but only about 30% of people over 50. Fortunately, the vaccination rates of people over 50 are quite high. The next few months are going to be very bad if intrinsic virulence is the same as prior variants but the thing should peak then drop almost as rapidly. If it's not as virulent, which would certainly be nice, the time dynamics will be similar but the impact not as bad. Good chance new vaccines may be available by April and effective against a wide range of current and future variants. |
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9th December 2021, 03:29 PM | #616 |
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Although related, infection, transmission and disease are different concepts.
Vaccines are usually not very good at preventing infection. What they may be good at is preventing disease, ie ameliorating the consequences of infection, which is what the current covid vaccines do very well, some vaccines do it so well that infections become asymptomatic. They may also reduce transmission current covid vaccines do not seem to be doing a good job of this with omicron. People are getting infected, and becoming mildly* ill, but shedding loads of virus. Vaccinated people are transmitting the virus to many other people at gatherings. From a public health point of view prevention of transmission is most important as it can lead to eradication of infection as 'herd immunity' is reached. *I am not certain that this means that omicron is less virulent than alpha or delta if it infects an unvaccinated, not previously infected person. It does appear to make vaccinated people more unwell than delta would. |
9th December 2021, 03:52 PM | #617 |
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Yeah. This seems to be lost on some. As a practical matter detecting asymptomatic infection is not very doable in a large trial. Can't really ask for people to come in every week for a nose invasion not to mention the cost. Especially when the Phase 3 trials were >40k people.
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9th December 2021, 04:06 PM | #618 |
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It seem weird that omicron would escape natural immunity, but not escape vaccine.
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9th December 2021, 04:49 PM | #619 |
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9th December 2021, 08:06 PM | #620 |
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Well, this isn't what I expected.
Pre-existing humoral immunity to human common cold coronaviruses negatively impacts the protective SARS-CoV-2 antibody response https://www.cell.com/cell-host-micro...128(21)00570-9 |
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10th December 2021, 03:19 AM | #621 |
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10th December 2021, 03:26 AM | #622 |
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10th December 2021, 05:59 AM | #623 |
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Doubling time of omicron in Scotland two days. Looks like no Xmas holiday for me.
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10th December 2021, 07:03 AM | #624 |
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Closely watching Norway, Denmark and other countries which flashed in the news with omicron. Also France has 7% and even Japan has 4% share of sequenced data !
Btw.Ourworldindata added omicron share today. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...SR~JPN~FRA~BEL So far there is no visible spike in new cases anywhere .. Denmark and Norway show some increase on rolling averages, but nothing serious if you look at actual daily values. Japan also flipped R over 1, but it seems to be longer trend, and their numbers are otherwise very low. Next week will tell more. |
10th December 2021, 07:26 AM | #625 |
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Incubation period for omicron seems to be much shorter, less than 48 hours.
https://twitter.com/timspector/statu...039410697?s=21
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10th December 2021, 09:22 AM | #626 |
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This document gives the modelling for the tsunami of omicron Scotland is expecting.
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/conten...ence-paper.pdf |
10th December 2021, 09:38 AM | #627 |
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More Very Bad News.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3981711 We report a cluster of Omicron variant infections in individuals who had received full primary vaccination series and booster doses with mRNA vaccines. All patients experienced symptomatic COVID-19 but clinical manifestations were mild to moderate. Their SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA loads and anti-spike antibody levels were determined. This series proves that even three doses of mRNA vaccines may not be sufficient to prevent infection and symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant. ... This case series proves that, as predicted, the Omicron variant is able to evade immunity induced by mRNA vaccines in vivo. As an aside, the people were relatively young so symptoms not particularly different from what is normally expected in that demo. On the good side none had low Ox and only one had loss of smell and it was temporary. Viral loads were typical of those unvaccinated (bummer). All had high levels of (normally) neutralizing antibodies from the vax. |
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10th December 2021, 11:01 AM | #628 |
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10th December 2021, 11:03 AM | #629 |
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10th December 2021, 11:21 AM | #630 |
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Mainstream climate science sources • http://www.skepticalscience.com/empi...al-warming.htm • https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...cting-a-future https://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...05/start-here/ Travelphotos >https://500px.com/macdoc/galleries |
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10th December 2021, 11:38 AM | #631 |
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No cure-all but there's plenty of evidence they are effective against severe disease. At least for prior variants. Significant evidence for Omicron as well since a higher percentage of the elderly in SA were either vaccinated or previously had Covid and there should be a signal by now out of SA if it wasn't effective against severe disease. Won't be very long before the data comes in at the current spread rate in plenty of other places.
However, the case for vaccinating people to prevent spread is becoming increasingly dubious. |
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10th December 2021, 11:41 AM | #632 |
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10th December 2021, 11:53 AM | #633 |
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The vaccines have already saved thousands of lives, so they clearly weren't a waste of time whatever happens.
Three vaccine doses key for tackling Omicron
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10th December 2021, 01:15 PM | #634 |
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Ah, but there is light on the horizon.
You have to love the way things are changing by the hour. Pixel's link might be the key. Sure, but that would require the kind of logical thinking many people are unable to do. You beat me to it - I was just coming to post that. 75% asymptomatic sounds pretty damned good, and I'm due for a booster in January, so I'm marking that down in the calendar. Still small numbers, but very encouraging. If that holds, then I think a combination of the booster plus proven treatments should be able to protect the vulnerable enough to not overwhelm hospitals. |
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10th December 2021, 04:08 PM | #635 |
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Study efficacy was against symptomatic infection. Asymptomatic rate is not known.
I'm doubtful Pfizer booster efficacy is that high. There's a big confounder that hasn't been accounted for. Boosters were largely done in the elderly and much less in younger groups. It's well established that the elderly have been more careful in general after it became clear they were more at risk. For instance in the USA, ages 20-50 have already had over 50% infections previously while over 60's are closer to 30%. Originally, prior to April 2020, cases were more evenly distributed between these two groups. Thus one would expect a lower rate of Omicron infections among the elderly than middle aged. This was not accounted for in the study. To the extent that discrepency continues to exist, I would expect the actual efficacy to be around 50-60% instead of 75%. https://khub.net/documents/135939561...5-70e8fad50074 In any case the extreme growth rate has the UK Omicron incidence reaching levels greater than Delta within a couple weeks. Not enough time for boosters to have much of an effect. The USA may have another week or two and other countries that have been seeded less a bit more time than that. But it's going to be damn hard to get enough boosters out there to make much difference in spread. The one thing that is encouraging is that none of the 500+ Omicron cases were hospitalized or died. |
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10th December 2021, 04:10 PM | #636 |
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1,280 cases in Denmark today: https://www.ssi.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/2...1529-pr-101221
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10th December 2021, 04:32 PM | #637 |
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10th December 2021, 04:52 PM | #638 |
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10th December 2021, 05:56 PM | #639 |
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As far as I understand it, Japan is testing people who come from overseas. The cases so far detected have all been detected in people arriving in Japan from other countries.
There are currently about 1,000 active cases in Japan, compared to the peak of the 5th wave which was 231,000 back on 8/29. So Japan is in a situation where protecting its borders is the most important anti-Covid measure right now. Because that's where most of the new cases are coming from. |
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10th December 2021, 06:07 PM | #640 |
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