Omicron
- Thread starter watu05
- Start date
Still early but of the 70 known cases in Europe, half have no symptoms and the other half have mild symptoms. Similar results have been seen in South Africa among the several thousand cases there. Good news thus far.
Agree. Hopefully that means the vaccines still work or the virus has traded lethality for being more contagious or both.
S African data says 3X more contagious than Delta.
Regardless,Omicons arrival underscores the need to vaccinate everyone, especially in Africa which is at about 3%.
PS I'm still haninging on to my Moderna stock.
S African data says 3X more contagious than Delta.
Regardless,Omicons arrival underscores the need to vaccinate everyone, especially in Africa which is at about 3%.
PS I'm still haninging on to my Moderna stock.
I might hold off on any new vaccination (booster) push re Omicron until we find out if the vaccine provides significant protection against contraction as symptoms appear mild. I assume they are working on a vaccine specifically targeted to Omicron or will be shortly. Looks like early 2022 for an Omicron specific vaccine fwiw. Lots of people, including myself, are going to be hesitant to get a booster then turn around and get a new vaccine a month or two later. Now if Omicron turns out to be more severe than currently being reported AND the booster provides significant protection then that thought process obviously changes
Omicron is likely to be the dominant strain in the US fairly quickly btw. Which just might be a good thing
Omicron is likely to be the dominant strain in the US fairly quickly btw. Which just might be a good thing
You do need to be careful about presuming the symptoms will be mild. The initial reports from SA that they were mild has become pervasive given a small sample size... and the first cases in SA were found among university students. Virus like Covid don't tend to become endemic this quickly. It took the Flu decades to become what we would describe as endemic across the globe.
I'm not saying that it's not going to be a milder strain, but that we need to remain vigilant until that is the case. Don't fall for the Trojan Horse.
isn't naming the covid variants using the Greek alphabet, discriminatory to the people of Greece?
I prefaced my statement “now if symptoms turn out to be more severe” I would would need to reassess. It’s only a small sample size but the fact the 70 known cases in Europe mirror the cases in South Africa is a very good sign. Certainly nothing to get alarmed or panic about at this time
All the major vaccine companies have announced that they had started developing Omicron specific vaccines as soon as it was identified. The last I heard, Moderna might have one ready in a month with a roll out in three months. I'm going to ask my biotech friends about the difference in testing requirements for a follow on vaccine vs. the initial version.
From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.....
"Big clinical trials take time and could be difficult to conduct for an omicron vaccine. After all, some people might hesitate to take an experimental vaccine when alternatives exist. Pfizer chief scientist Mikael Dolsten told Stat that, based on conversations with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it’s not clear whether new clinical trials will be necessary. The FDA did not respond to questions about whether this would be the case.
Other analyses could be used to determine whether new COVID-19 vaccines will be effective without conducting large-scale human trials. Dolsten told Stata small trial that assesses safety and immune response could be completed in a month...."
"Big clinical trials take time and could be difficult to conduct for an omicron vaccine. After all, some people might hesitate to take an experimental vaccine when alternatives exist. Pfizer chief scientist Mikael Dolsten told Stat that, based on conversations with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it’s not clear whether new clinical trials will be necessary. The FDA did not respond to questions about whether this would be the case.
Other analyses could be used to determine whether new COVID-19 vaccines will be effective without conducting large-scale human trials. Dolsten told Stata small trial that assesses safety and immune response could be completed in a month...."
Just some more data points. Vaccine didn’t appear to be a significant deterrent but cases are mild. Basically what we’ve seen thus far
www.wsj.com
Omicron Cases at Norway Christmas Party Provide Clues on New Variant’s Spread
The event at an upscale Oslo restaurant included about 120 people, several of whom had just returned from South Africa.
www.wsj.com
Still not great news that it's spreading widely through the vaccinated. Eventually it will just mutate further.Just some more data points. Vaccine didn’t appear to be a significant deterrent but cases are mild. Basically what we’ve seen thus far
Omicron Cases at Norway Christmas Party Provide Clues on New Variant’s Spread
The event at an upscale Oslo restaurant included about 120 people, several of whom had just returned from South Africa.
Hopefully this is the first step in a typical mutation cycle where the virus continues to become less and less severe. Vaccinations will never keep up with this virus. This is a worldwide event affecting 8B people. Something those who have focused on the US seem to conveniently forget. It is what it is. Get and stay healthy and hope this is the first step to the end of this pandemic.
Get vaccinated. Move on with your life. The end. Even if plenty of people don’t get vaccinated move on with your life. It’s been 2 years.
Staying healthy is great for the young, but in the elderly immune systems weaken with age, so staying healthy is less likely to help. Last March, 25% of American adults claimed that they would absolutely refuse to get vaccinated, (the same people are likely to resist other public health measurres). Yes, Covid will be with us for a long time.
www.cidrap.umn.edu
Poll: 1 of 4 Americans will refuse COVID-19 vaccine
Yes, Covid will be with us for a long time.
Poll: 1 of 4 Americans will refuse COVID-19 vaccine
But for none of the reasons you listed
Staying healthy is great for everyone but few of us are doing it. Over 42% of Americans are obese and incredibly that number has increased in the last 18 months even though it’s widely known the #1 risk factor of dying from Covid is obesity. Get vaccinated but relying on the same at this point as a magic bullet is foolhardy. Get healthy too. Luckily, Omicron thus far appears to a relatively low health threat even to the elderly and obese. Hoping the good news continues.Staying healthy is great for the young, but in the elderly immune systems weaken with age, so staying healthy is less likely to help. Last March, 25% of American adults claimed that they would absolutely refuse to get vaccinated, (the same people are likely to resist other public health measurres). Yes, Covid will be with us for a long time.
Poll: 1 of 4 Americans will refuse COVID-19 vaccine
Curious how surprised the health “experts” are that vaccinations haven’t turned out to be the magic bullet they claimed?
Obesity is a Common, Serious, and Costly Disease
Get the latest data and facts about adult obesity in the US.
www.cdc.gov
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I don't know any doc who would disagree with the risk that obesity or other co-mobidities pose to good health. With 25% of American refusing vaccinations and more refusing to observe public health measures along with the huge variant stew that is the rest of the unvaccinated world, I doubt few health experts are surprised that Covid is still with us in the way it is. It is what they have been warning us would happen if we don't get with it.
No health expert who actually fits the term would be surprised that covid was with us and churning out variants even if 100% of people were vaccinated.
Patient X in the US was fully vaccinated fwiw. The state with the highest rate of vaccinated individuals in the US currently has 3 times as many active cases than at any time during the pandemic. Those he keep preaching vaccinations are the answer to stopping the spread are simply spreading false information. Omicron doesn’t seem to care of one’s vaccination status. It’s an equal opportunity infector. Luckily it also appears to be similar to a bad cold whether you’re vaccinated or not. Yet those out there are still trying to spread fear.
Zeynep Tufekci one of the people whose reporting on Covid I most respect. Here's part 1 of a summary of how to think about Omicron or any new variant.
Immunity against breakthroughs/re-infections: Any day now, we’ll get lab reports about “neutralizing antibodies” against this variant from vaccinated or infected people. I’d expect a big drop—and it may sound very large because this is reported in multiples as in “20-fold drop” or “35-fold drop.” This can be a bit misleading: they can drop a lot but still be enough to neutralize or help hold off the infection.
It’s also important to remember that antibodies are the parts of the immune system that hold off the infection from taking root—the early shock troops. As I’ve written before, the immune system isn’t just a wall, but a multi-layered defense system.
The mechanisms that stave of progression to severe disease are different, as I wrote in my New York Times op-ed on the Omicron as well:
The antibodies are those first bouncers—they come in quick, but can only see so much and are more easily fooled. The rest of the immune system, T cells, etc. come in a little later in the game once they realize something is wrong, when infection takes hold, but can step back to look, as it were, and recognize the virus anyway even if it is mutated some. That’s why vaccines (or prior infection) can still hold off on severe disease even when they are no longer as effective in preventing infections or symptoms.
What if we’re surprised and the antibody titers don’t drop much, if at all? To be honest, I’d be really surprised because we are already seeing superspreader events among the vaccinated from Omicron, and epidemiology is usually a lot more telling than lab reports on such questions.
Transmissibility is the second important question. I expect to see more clarity on that from the United Kingdom: watch especially indicators like spread among the household from the UK Health Security Agency studies. Remember, spread can be due to inherent transmissibility or just ability to re-infect people who are otherwise vaccinated or had prior infections before. (If it were spreading among immunologically naive populations, we’d also have to wait to see if it was just chance: one strain got introduced earlier than others, but I think we are past that with this: it is spreading more—but how much of what factor is playing what size role? We shall learn, in time).
Also, for jealousy: look at all the studies the United Kingdom health agencies are doing on this, from their technical briefing on Omicron. People in countries like the United States just have to wait for others to please, do the real work it takes to understand and respond.
Immunity against breakthroughs/re-infections: Any day now, we’ll get lab reports about “neutralizing antibodies” against this variant from vaccinated or infected people. I’d expect a big drop—and it may sound very large because this is reported in multiples as in “20-fold drop” or “35-fold drop.” This can be a bit misleading: they can drop a lot but still be enough to neutralize or help hold off the infection.
It’s also important to remember that antibodies are the parts of the immune system that hold off the infection from taking root—the early shock troops. As I’ve written before, the immune system isn’t just a wall, but a multi-layered defense system.
The mechanisms that stave of progression to severe disease are different, as I wrote in my New York Times op-ed on the Omicron as well:
The parts of the immune system that work to stave off severe disease progression are able to recognize the virus in a broader way than the antibodies that see just a small part of it. An antibody evading mutation like Superman putting on glasses and fooling someone very, very nearby because they can only look at the shape of the face in that section, but someone who can step back look at whole face can recognize it’s still our mild-mannered journalist, Clark Kent!
The antibodies are those first bouncers—they come in quick, but can only see so much and are more easily fooled. The rest of the immune system, T cells, etc. come in a little later in the game once they realize something is wrong, when infection takes hold, but can step back to look, as it were, and recognize the virus anyway even if it is mutated some. That’s why vaccines (or prior infection) can still hold off on severe disease even when they are no longer as effective in preventing infections or symptoms.
What if we’re surprised and the antibody titers don’t drop much, if at all? To be honest, I’d be really surprised because we are already seeing superspreader events among the vaccinated from Omicron, and epidemiology is usually a lot more telling than lab reports on such questions.
Transmissibility is the second important question. I expect to see more clarity on that from the United Kingdom: watch especially indicators like spread among the household from the UK Health Security Agency studies. Remember, spread can be due to inherent transmissibility or just ability to re-infect people who are otherwise vaccinated or had prior infections before. (If it were spreading among immunologically naive populations, we’d also have to wait to see if it was just chance: one strain got introduced earlier than others, but I think we are past that with this: it is spreading more—but how much of what factor is playing what size role? We shall learn, in time).
Also, for jealousy: look at all the studies the United Kingdom health agencies are doing on this, from their technical briefing on Omicron. People in countries like the United States just have to wait for others to please, do the real work it takes to understand and respond.
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Part two
Severity: This remains the third and big question, in multiple parts.
First: how severe will re-infections or vaccine breakthrough will be? Immunology suggests, everything else equal, they would be milder (see this great post here, by Dylan H. Morris), but everything else is not equal. This is a new variant, and the best data on this will be the epidemiology. (There is no way to look at just the sequence and assign a disease course). Still, it is not a brand new disease for the seropositives, people with prior infection and vaccination, and one expects disease course to be, on average, milder—subject to the usual conditions like immunocompetence, age and comorbidities.
Second: what about the seronegatives? People with no vaccination, no prior infection? Well, they are already sitting ducks for Delta, which is highly transmissible and likely more severe than other strains, so the severity question may well play out differently for them. (Getting vaccinated would be the best idea, obviously).
It takes about two-three weeks from exposure and infection to hospitalization, and about four-six weeks to death, sadly. Plus, all early data is subject to selection effects: if the first superspreader events are in, say, college campuses, we get a young cohort who tend to have milder outcomes anyway, so we can’t really get a picture of severity from them easily—severe cases are already rare, so harder to tell the signal from the noise with smaller samples.
All this means it may take until the end of December or even early January to get clarity on the question of severity, likely from South Africa and United Kingdom and some European countries with good tracking.
I know this isn’t a good way to enter into the winter season, and I think even the best option will suck—many breakthroughs aren’t great to experience even if they turn out to be mild. Plus, the stress on the health system is real, plus it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, so peak season anyway for respiratory illnesses.
By the way, getting vaccinated will certainly help even with a new variant, and so will the booster. Especially if Omicron turns out to be severe, we may be in for a variant-specific booster at some point, but the vaccines we have are still expected to provide substantial protection against severe progression, and good masks, ventilation, air-filtering etc. work against all variants.
So far, my understanding is that rapid tests will not have any issues working as before, but remember: they are good for when they are taken. Take one right before an event of consequence—not the day before.
And what if this does not turn into a crisis? That’s still possible. Still, it’s best to prepare while waiting. A few weeks of stress, and even overreaction, is better than finding out too late that it will cause us more problem than we anticipated, and also that it’s too late to do anything about it.
Any wonder why over 1/3 of Americans are not vaccinated?
Washington Post
As scientists race to understand the omicron variant, misinformation has already sprinted ahead
SAN FRANCISCO — In July, a fake slide deck with the logos of the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum purporting to show a schedule for when coronavirus variants would be “released” rocketed around social media, racking up thousands of likes on Twitter and Instagram.
Anti-vaccine influencers posted the image, citing it as proof that the pandemic was orchestrated by powerful interests, and that new variants of the disease were all part of a shadowy plan.
Fast forward to the end of November, when South African scientists identified the omicron variant and warned that it had a high number of mutations. While public health officials around the world cautioned people not to jump to conclusions before the variant could be studied more closely, the fake image recirculated on social media, posted by people adamant that omicron was just the next step of a global conspiracy.
Other false claims about the new variant have leaped across the Internet in the two weeks since it was first identified. One post in a group with more than a million members on the Telegram messaging app claimed the vaccines had caused the omicron variant, according to First Draft, a nonprofit that investigates misinformation. Another conspiracy theory posits that the variant is being pushed by governments and pharmaceutical companies to undermine ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that vaccine skeptics have said treats covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (There is no scientific evidence supporting that claim.)
Others have claimed the timing of the variant’s discovery suggests government officials are trying to distract people from following the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of helping financier Jeffrey Epstein traffic underage girls.
The new strains of misinformation are the latest wrinkle in what has been a years-long battle between social media companies and those taking advantage of a global thirst for knowledge and facts in the face of a void of information. While platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have banned coronavirus and vaccine misinformation, instead attempting to promote authoritative information from the government, it continues to spread.
Washington Post
As scientists race to understand the omicron variant, misinformation has already sprinted ahead
SAN FRANCISCO — In July, a fake slide deck with the logos of the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum purporting to show a schedule for when coronavirus variants would be “released” rocketed around social media, racking up thousands of likes on Twitter and Instagram.
Anti-vaccine influencers posted the image, citing it as proof that the pandemic was orchestrated by powerful interests, and that new variants of the disease were all part of a shadowy plan.
Fast forward to the end of November, when South African scientists identified the omicron variant and warned that it had a high number of mutations. While public health officials around the world cautioned people not to jump to conclusions before the variant could be studied more closely, the fake image recirculated on social media, posted by people adamant that omicron was just the next step of a global conspiracy.
Other false claims about the new variant have leaped across the Internet in the two weeks since it was first identified. One post in a group with more than a million members on the Telegram messaging app claimed the vaccines had caused the omicron variant, according to First Draft, a nonprofit that investigates misinformation. Another conspiracy theory posits that the variant is being pushed by governments and pharmaceutical companies to undermine ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that vaccine skeptics have said treats covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (There is no scientific evidence supporting that claim.)
Others have claimed the timing of the variant’s discovery suggests government officials are trying to distract people from following the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of helping financier Jeffrey Epstein traffic underage girls.
The new strains of misinformation are the latest wrinkle in what has been a years-long battle between social media companies and those taking advantage of a global thirst for knowledge and facts in the face of a void of information. While platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have banned coronavirus and vaccine misinformation, instead attempting to promote authoritative information from the government, it continues to spread.
84% of US adults have had at least one dose, so the actual reason(s) 33% in the US are unvaccinated are that the vaccine was only recently approved for some younger age groups, still isn’t approved for some, and some parents are hesitant because the risk to children is very low.
Can we stop the misinformation which is continuing to be spread that vaccines will stop the spread of this virus. The CDC has finally admitted that herd immunity isn’t the answer but some still hold on the notion that vaccines are the answer to eliminate Covid. Remember when science was telling us testing was the answer to stop the spread?
Case in point. The state with the highest vaccination rate set a daily new case record today. That state currently has 3x the number of active cases than at anytime during the pandemic. That state has also seen two of the three highest death days on the last few weeks from Covid.
Germany now has over 70% of its adult population fully vaccinated. Yet they have over twice the active cases as at any time during the pandemic….and increasing. I assume vaccines still help slow the spread but the data isn’t encouraging.
Get vaccinated. Get healthy. Come to grips with the fact that this virus in some form will likely be around for years. If it’s not it will be because it ran its natural course and not from anything humans or science did to eliminate the same.
Case in point. The state with the highest vaccination rate set a daily new case record today. That state currently has 3x the number of active cases than at anytime during the pandemic. That state has also seen two of the three highest death days on the last few weeks from Covid.
Germany now has over 70% of its adult population fully vaccinated. Yet they have over twice the active cases as at any time during the pandemic….and increasing. I assume vaccines still help slow the spread but the data isn’t encouraging.
Get vaccinated. Get healthy. Come to grips with the fact that this virus in some form will likely be around for years. If it’s not it will be because it ran its natural course and not from anything humans or science did to eliminate the same.
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Excellent medical advice (which I and those I know are following along with social distancing, masks and hygiene), but there's no reason yet to believe that humans or science cannot deal with Covid as it has with numerous other viruses unless one is talking about human nature and political barriers. Science is an evolving process and taking selected snapshots of a situation at a particular point in time to characterize a ongoing process is misleading. It's a bit like using a balance sheet to predict a company's future profitability. There's information there, but it's a slice in time of a longer term process. On the other hand, I'd agree if your view is that a significant number of people will resolutely refuse to participate in the war on the virus by not masking, will refuse to get vaccinated, not observe basic public health rules, and continue to actively spread ridiculous conspiracy theories.
For example, I have an anti-vaxxer friend who follows Robert Kennedy and spends his time trying to convince others that 5G is the root cause of Covid, and the water is affected by one's thoughts. He's not helping.
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