6 ms·

Omicron Update, Dec 2

63 points by yanowitz 5y ago

spaniard89277 5y ago
Well if Rt is ~3 I guess we're going to have another ride in Spain. I don't think this country can handle another lockdown. In my region people is pretty sensible about mask use etc. We relaxed a bit, but people still take care. I've been to Madrid and Barcelona for work and people behaves like this never happened. I hope I get a chance to a boost shot, because I know a couple of dudes that got covid and the side effects are pretty ugly. I'd rather be in my bed with fever for a couple of days.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  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 the US, state by state.
  - junon 5y ago
    > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.
    - loeg 5y ago
      That, and vaccination does reduce transmission in addition to disease severity.
      - junon 5y ago
        Yes, correct
      - seafoam 5y ago
        Vaccination reduces positive PCR test results in the weeks after the jab. It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission. In the US, the CDC stopped publishing the data one would need to get answers on this in May. For some reason.
        junon 5y ago
        > It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission. Citation please, because you're challenging the entire field of immunology here.
    - spurgu 5y ago
      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.
      - junon 5y ago
        I think you misunderstand what herd immunity is.
        spurgu 5y ago
        Huh? The point where R0 dips below 1?
        junon 5y ago
        I'm more referring to the fact that Europe is nowhere near the low end of the vaccination percentage health officials stated was necessary to have any chance at controlling this.
        spurgu 5y ago
        Ok, I think initial estimates (back in 2020) were that we'd need a vaccination rate of around 80-85% (which many countries have now). But that got thrown out of the window with force with Delta.
    - adam_arthur 5y ago
      Covid is spreading at a similar rate today in most countries as it did when it first struck and there was no vaccine at all. Look at the trends in Italy, UK, US, for example. I agree the vaccine helps, but there is no clear impact on reducing spread if you look at infection data in aggregate. We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts.
      - CabSauce 5y ago
        You're trying to find data to fit your pre-determined conclusion. We're dealing with different variants now, which are more contagious.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        What data to fit my conclusion? I'm referencing hard data, and the dissenters here are not. If you disagree, use hard data to support your assertions that vaccines have noticeably reduced infection rate. The one following the science is the one using the data, by the way. Anything else is religion.
        tremon 5y ago
        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 September of this year. So no, you don't get to claim "hard data" on your opinion.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        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 wrong with data showing FL and TX had worse outcomes in regards to infections to blue states with strict measures. If you can't show a significant difference in outcome, reassessing your firmly held beliefs that have been proven wrong through data is called "following the science". Most lockdown proponents are following religion, and what they desire to be true, than science.
  - spaniard89277 5y ago
    Well, it helped to aleviate the collapse of hospitals here. They were late so hospitals collapsed anyway, but could have been worse. It's just a question of timing. Late for Madrid, nicely timed for my city. Another new problem I see is that healthcare personnel is burnt-out. Not only because of the insane work-hours and all the jazz, they feel mistreated by politicians and society in general, and I have doubts that if they get called for a new emergency they'll go contribute in the same numbers.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Only because they're partial and temporary. NZ and Australia went into a full borders closed lockdown and were back in stadiums with tens of thousands while the epidemic was in full swing in the rest of the world. I mean, I get that it's a morally difficult one because freedoms and rights and shit, but if the world went into lockdown for a month when this thing first came out, we wouldn't be in this situation. The 'lockdowns' we get now are compromises; in my own country, their aim is to keep the economy going and kids going to school, even if workplaces and schools are probably the biggest spreaders. I say probably, because they announce new measures without providing evidence that the actions they take are the most effective at stopping the spread. Things like closing shops at 5; where are the facts that open shops after 5 are the biggest problem?
  - shmatt 5y ago
    Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas and by true, that means something you can actually validate isn't fake, while checking for ID at the same time. And also not allowing in un-vaccinated children because of fairness. Deadly viruses do not care about fairness At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often, but verified with my ID about 10% of the time. So that wouldn't have the same effect
    - beagle3 5y ago
      It is possible to avoid lockdown by not imposing lockdowns. It is that simple. It is not the vaccine passports that stopped lockdown - in fact, there is no evidence they had any effect on transmission.
    - michaelmior 5y ago
      > At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often Also in NY (upstate). I can recall my passport being checked only once or twice since the beginning of the pandemic. I assume you're referring to NYC?
    - piva00 5y ago
      > Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas You are just pushing the work to be done by low-level employees at this point. Yes, it can work for a while but go talk to anyone who works in public event spaces (theaters, bars, cinemas, etc.) in, for example, Germany and you will see how much fatigue this causes. And what happens when people get fatigued due to the extra workload created by forcing these measures to be taken by small businesses? People get sloppy, they get tired of a procedure that usually would take 2 minutes taking 15, chipping time away from other duties they are responsible for (and supervised). Over time they stop doing the checks properly and just like with other COVID measures, becomes increasingly ineffective. I only had this realisation after chatting with some friends of friends in Berlin working in hospitality (hotels, bars, etc.) and events, almost every single one of them were exhausted from having to perform the extra checks on every customer, every shift, every play, every table they sit. They were trying really hard to not get sloppy because they actually care about the people, but it was clear how it was affecting them. It didn't look as a sustainable measure against COVID after 2 years of a pandemic. That was also the fear I read voiced by experts during the first 6 months of the pandemic: people will get tired of the measures, when they get tired and don't follow them anymore it gets much worse. How to balance that is exactly all this political game going on, there is no simple solution when we talk about population levels of a nation.
  - sirkent 5y ago
    My understanding is that a lockdown is only supposed to slow the spread and alleviate pressure on health services so that they are not overwhelmed. We saw what happens when they are overwhelmed in India - Many more people die that could have been saved. So to answer your question, you would have to define 'objectively better'. Are you referring to economic outcomes, number of deaths or some other measurement?
  - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
    My problem is that these restrictions only apply to the common folk, political and business elites seem to have a pass… Even golden boy Trudeau who can do no wrong was spotted in Ottawa breaking newly announced restrictions like goddamn.
    - spaniard89277 5y ago
      It happened here too. I guess people seeing politicians trying to hop to be the first in the line to get vaccines helped vaccination.
  - zamalek 5y ago
    Sweden did a nationwide study, it didn't end well.[1] Several of the bad variants also originated from countries which did not participate in full lockdown (India, Brazil). Edit: if Omicron becomes a second 2020, I'd pay close attention to how Sweden reacts, given their recent experiences. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-strategy-failed-higher-death-rate-2021-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-str...
    - disambiguation 5y ago
      Are you just reacting to that headline? Sweden's numbers are really good all things considered [1] This defies intuition, we would expect a "no restrictions" policy to result in significantly worse outcomes. Maybe the take away is that a healthier population and a better healthcare system is a more significant factor than restrictions and mandates? [1] https://ncov2019.live/data/europe https://ncov2019.live/data/europe
    - sjwalter 5y ago
      And omicron arose in vaccinated people and traveled the world in the respiratory tracts of the fully vaxxed.
      - shmatt 5y ago
        SA is only 25% vaxxed. Perfect ground for new mutations
        beagle3 5y ago
        The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission. It’s not clear yet if it is putting any evolutionary pressure towards vaccine evasion (some people expect it to). But SA is no more a breeding ground than anywhere else. The well-documented breeding grounds are the immune suppressed, and it is incredibly unlikely that omicron developed in one of them.
        tremon 5y ago
  - sjwalter 5y ago
    They're only arbitrary and pointless if you believe the goal is public health. Imagine seeing what's going on in eg Australia and still thinking this is about a virus!
    - pfisch 5y ago
      Pretty sure it is about the virus and not some loony toon new world order thing or whatever the conspiracy of the week is.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      What's going on in Australia, you mean the international travel restrictions? One of the things I see "going on in Australia". Australia has had around 8 covid deaths per 100K population. Compared to, say, the United States with 237 covid deaths per 100K population. I see that and still think it's about a virus, yup. In general over the past two years as a whole, people in Australia have lived with fewer restrictions or changes to everyday life than here in the US, with an order of magnitude fewer deaths. I still think it's about a virus, yup. (I do not necessarily endorse international travel restrictions, including the ones the USA is enforcing, which seem to be pretty fruitless, and in some cases stricter than Australia's. I think they are mistaken. But it's about a virus, yup. Among other things, certainly US general xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are involved in ours too. I too worry that we are imposing controls we will never see the end of, including related to border-crossing, which suits the agenda of some just fine. I'm sure it's about more than one thing in Australia too. Human things usually are. But it's about a virus, yup.).
  - shin_lao 5y ago
    Imagine if the conclusion is "the lockdowns were useless".
  - simonh 5y ago
    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 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.
    - adam_arthur 5y ago
      Yes, of course. But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point. You can't lockdown the virus away. You can't stop the spread by canceling flights either. Just seems like awful policymaking driven by virtue signaling. Covid is here forever, and that's life.
      - FourHand451 5y ago
        > But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point. Plenty of people live their whole lives without catching smallpox or polio. We have/can develop effective vaccines for COVID. Why should it be different?
        beagle3 5y ago
        No people have gone through their life without catching the cold and very few without catching the flu at least once, despite having flu vaccines for a few decades now. Not all viruses are the same, and sarscov2 is much more like cold/flu than polio. Specifically, saracov2 has reservoirs in animals. Unless you had an effective vaccine that also works for cats, dogs, deer etc and the ability to actually deploy it (think wild deer all over the US), it’s here to stay.
        Geezus-42 5y ago
        Create an animal vaccine, give hunters dart guns and free rein to shoot as many as they can. Then see what happens.
  - volta83 5y ago
    Good question. Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths. The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million. The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants. The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU. People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of not dying of COVID than people living in the USA, even though COVID hit the EU first, which gave the USA longer time to prepare. This doesn't really answer your question, because the answer is very personal. Some people were really scared and preferred to trade some freedom for more safety. And well we have many examples of vocal famous people that traded off safety for freedom, and died of COVID. These people would have probably been better off had they lived in the EU, even if they would have been breaking the law and paying fines.
    - adam_arthur 5y ago
      I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error. With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.
      - r00fus 5y ago
        Well, I'd say the biggest difference was that in the EU, many countries would give you 80% unemployment to stay home for many months. In the US, you'd get a few thousand $, many months later. So yeah, you might have had a similar chance to catch COVID but your livelihood and financial security were much more secure in Europe. Policy-wise w/r/t COVID, EU and US are nowhere near NZ, Tiawan or China. Now that's containment taken seriously and it shows.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        Many in the US made significantly more on the combination of enhanced unemployment and stimulus checks than they had made working. Greater than 100% previous wage. You can see the aggregate personal income data here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI
draw_down 5y ago
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-ANGELIQUE-COETZEE-discovered-Omicron-says-reacting-threat.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10256373/Dr-ANGEL...
- shmatt 5y ago
  She, as a family doctor, was fast to alert from the front lines. But she is not an infectious disease specialist. The first doctors seeing HIV cases in California without knowing what it was, yet alerting the medical community, were not the same people who brought us the current medication that controls it Her position on the front lines is very important. But the decision on how dangerous the variant is should be given to those who specialize in just that (and would probably suck at diagnosing you with a stomach ulcer)
- y4mi 5y ago
  i don't have any domain knowledge so i cannot build an opinion on the matter, but the fact that they discovered it doesn't give them more authority on the topic then everyone else. most researchers i've heard on the topic only said "we will have to pay close attention to it", which sounds pretty reasonable from my uneducated perspective.
  - tremon 5y ago
    Both the name and the picture in the article would suggest that "he" is, in all likelihood, a she.
    - junon 5y ago
      Wtf is your goal with this comment?
    - y4mi 5y ago
      I corrected it to they, sorry for using a gendered pronoun. It sometimes slips my mind, as I never really thought about "he" being male in this kind of context. I will pay more attention to it.
rossdavidh 5y ago
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, one way or the other. But if Omicron and Delta compete, then it seems plausible that the existing vaccines would at least help a bit with the severity of symptoms.
- tgv 5y ago
  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.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    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.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I don't see how a mutation, no matter what, being more infectious is good news. The fact it (and Delta for that matter) was allowed to mutate in the first place is already pretty telling that the approach used to stem the tide was not effective.
- jsnell 5y ago
  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.
thomcano 5y ago
Let's do our jobs properly to minimize the spread of the Omicron variant as possible; this will help our health works and researchers somehow.
christmm 5y ago
I find that the most relevant information is given by Dr Fauci. Everyone needs to trust the science and Dr Fauci, and stop reading anything else when we know the rest is misinformation.
- digitalsushi 5y ago
  I trust science and I trust Fauci but if I am learning anything from the current tense, it's that we should push back on idolization

63 points by yanowitz 5y ago

Well if Rt is ~3 I guess we're going to have another ride in Spain. I don't think this country can handle another lockdown. In my region people is pretty sensible about mask use etc. We relaxed a bit, but people still take care. I've been to Madrid and Barcelona for work and people behaves like this never happened. I hope I get a chance to a boost shot, because I know a couple of dudes that got covid and the side effects are pretty ugly. I'd rather be in my bed with fever for a couple of days.

adam_arthur 5y ago
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 the US, state by state.
- junon 5y ago
  > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading There is not widespread vaccination, though. That's where your argument falls apart.
  - loeg 5y ago
    That, and vaccination does reduce transmission in addition to disease severity.
    - junon 5y ago
      Yes, correct
    - seafoam 5y ago
      Vaccination reduces positive PCR test results in the weeks after the jab. It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission. In the US, the CDC stopped publishing the data one would need to get answers on this in May. For some reason.
      - junon 5y ago
        > It is not for sure that it reduces community transmission. Citation please, because you're challenging the entire field of immunology here.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    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.
    - junon 5y ago
      I think you misunderstand what herd immunity is.
      - spurgu 5y ago
        Huh? The point where R0 dips below 1?
        junon 5y ago
        I'm more referring to the fact that Europe is nowhere near the low end of the vaccination percentage health officials stated was necessary to have any chance at controlling this.
        spurgu 5y ago
        Ok, I think initial estimates (back in 2020) were that we'd need a vaccination rate of around 80-85% (which many countries have now). But that got thrown out of the window with force with Delta.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    Covid is spreading at a similar rate today in most countries as it did when it first struck and there was no vaccine at all. Look at the trends in Italy, UK, US, for example. I agree the vaccine helps, but there is no clear impact on reducing spread if you look at infection data in aggregate. We've gone from 0% vaccinated, to 60-70% with no discernable dip in infection counts.
    - CabSauce 5y ago
      You're trying to find data to fit your pre-determined conclusion. We're dealing with different variants now, which are more contagious.
      - adam_arthur 5y ago
        What data to fit my conclusion? I'm referencing hard data, and the dissenters here are not. If you disagree, use hard data to support your assertions that vaccines have noticeably reduced infection rate. The one following the science is the one using the data, by the way. Anything else is religion.
        tremon 5y ago
        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 September of this year. So no, you don't get to claim "hard data" on your opinion.
        adam_arthur 5y ago
        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 wrong with data showing FL and TX had worse outcomes in regards to infections to blue states with strict measures. If you can't show a significant difference in outcome, reassessing your firmly held beliefs that have been proven wrong through data is called "following the science". Most lockdown proponents are following religion, and what they desire to be true, than science.
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  Well, it helped to aleviate the collapse of hospitals here. They were late so hospitals collapsed anyway, but could have been worse. It's just a question of timing. Late for Madrid, nicely timed for my city. Another new problem I see is that healthcare personnel is burnt-out. Not only because of the insane work-hours and all the jazz, they feel mistreated by politicians and society in general, and I have doubts that if they get called for a new emergency they'll go contribute in the same numbers.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > Given that widespread vaccination does not stop infection from spreading, lockdowns seem arbitrary and pointless. Only because they're partial and temporary. NZ and Australia went into a full borders closed lockdown and were back in stadiums with tens of thousands while the epidemic was in full swing in the rest of the world. I mean, I get that it's a morally difficult one because freedoms and rights and shit, but if the world went into lockdown for a month when this thing first came out, we wouldn't be in this situation. The 'lockdowns' we get now are compromises; in my own country, their aim is to keep the economy going and kids going to school, even if workplaces and schools are probably the biggest spreaders. I say probably, because they announce new measures without providing evidence that the actions they take are the most effective at stopping the spread. Things like closing shops at 5; where are the facts that open shops after 5 are the biggest problem?
- shmatt 5y ago
  Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas and by true, that means something you can actually validate isn't fake, while checking for ID at the same time. And also not allowing in un-vaccinated children because of fairness. Deadly viruses do not care about fairness At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often, but verified with my ID about 10% of the time. So that wouldn't have the same effect
  - beagle3 5y ago
    It is possible to avoid lockdown by not imposing lockdowns. It is that simple. It is not the vaccine passports that stopped lockdown - in fact, there is no evidence they had any effect on transmission.
  - michaelmior 5y ago
    > At least here in NY, USA - I have my vaccine passport checked very often Also in NY (upstate). I can recall my passport being checked only once or twice since the beginning of the pandemic. I assume you're referring to NYC?
  - piva00 5y ago
    > Not an official study but just an observation - its very possible to avoid lockdowns so far, by implementing true vaccine passports. Israel did that without any shutdowns during the 4th wave. Basically banning non-vaccinated people from most public areas You are just pushing the work to be done by low-level employees at this point. Yes, it can work for a while but go talk to anyone who works in public event spaces (theaters, bars, cinemas, etc.) in, for example, Germany and you will see how much fatigue this causes. And what happens when people get fatigued due to the extra workload created by forcing these measures to be taken by small businesses? People get sloppy, they get tired of a procedure that usually would take 2 minutes taking 15, chipping time away from other duties they are responsible for (and supervised). Over time they stop doing the checks properly and just like with other COVID measures, becomes increasingly ineffective. I only had this realisation after chatting with some friends of friends in Berlin working in hospitality (hotels, bars, etc.) and events, almost every single one of them were exhausted from having to perform the extra checks on every customer, every shift, every play, every table they sit. They were trying really hard to not get sloppy because they actually care about the people, but it was clear how it was affecting them. It didn't look as a sustainable measure against COVID after 2 years of a pandemic. That was also the fear I read voiced by experts during the first 6 months of the pandemic: people will get tired of the measures, when they get tired and don't follow them anymore it gets much worse. How to balance that is exactly all this political game going on, there is no simple solution when we talk about population levels of a nation.
- sirkent 5y ago
  My understanding is that a lockdown is only supposed to slow the spread and alleviate pressure on health services so that they are not overwhelmed. We saw what happens when they are overwhelmed in India - Many more people die that could have been saved. So to answer your question, you would have to define 'objectively better'. Are you referring to economic outcomes, number of deaths or some other measurement?
- gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
  My problem is that these restrictions only apply to the common folk, political and business elites seem to have a pass… Even golden boy Trudeau who can do no wrong was spotted in Ottawa breaking newly announced restrictions like goddamn.
  - spaniard89277 5y ago
    It happened here too. I guess people seeing politicians trying to hop to be the first in the line to get vaccines helped vaccination.
- zamalek 5y ago
  Sweden did a nationwide study, it didn't end well.[1] Several of the bad variants also originated from countries which did not participate in full lockdown (India, Brazil). Edit: if Omicron becomes a second 2020, I'd pay close attention to how Sweden reacts, given their recent experiences. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-strategy-failed-higher-death-rate-2021-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-covid-no-lockdown-str...
  - disambiguation 5y ago
    Are you just reacting to that headline? Sweden's numbers are really good all things considered [1] This defies intuition, we would expect a "no restrictions" policy to result in significantly worse outcomes. Maybe the take away is that a healthier population and a better healthcare system is a more significant factor than restrictions and mandates? [1] https://ncov2019.live/data/europe https://ncov2019.live/data/europe
  - sjwalter 5y ago
    And omicron arose in vaccinated people and traveled the world in the respiratory tracts of the fully vaxxed.
    - shmatt 5y ago
      SA is only 25% vaxxed. Perfect ground for new mutations
      - beagle3 5y ago
        The vaccine is leaky. It doesn’t stop infection or transmission. It’s not clear yet if it is putting any evolutionary pressure towards vaccine evasion (some people expect it to). But SA is no more a breeding ground than anywhere else. The well-documented breeding grounds are the immune suppressed, and it is incredibly unlikely that omicron developed in one of them.
        tremon 5y ago
- sjwalter 5y ago
  They're only arbitrary and pointless if you believe the goal is public health. Imagine seeing what's going on in eg Australia and still thinking this is about a virus!
  - pfisch 5y ago
    Pretty sure it is about the virus and not some loony toon new world order thing or whatever the conspiracy of the week is.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    What's going on in Australia, you mean the international travel restrictions? One of the things I see "going on in Australia". Australia has had around 8 covid deaths per 100K population. Compared to, say, the United States with 237 covid deaths per 100K population. I see that and still think it's about a virus, yup. In general over the past two years as a whole, people in Australia have lived with fewer restrictions or changes to everyday life than here in the US, with an order of magnitude fewer deaths. I still think it's about a virus, yup. (I do not necessarily endorse international travel restrictions, including the ones the USA is enforcing, which seem to be pretty fruitless, and in some cases stricter than Australia's. I think they are mistaken. But it's about a virus, yup. Among other things, certainly US general xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment are involved in ours too. I too worry that we are imposing controls we will never see the end of, including related to border-crossing, which suits the agenda of some just fine. I'm sure it's about more than one thing in Australia too. Human things usually are. But it's about a virus, yup.).
- shin_lao 5y ago
  Imagine if the conclusion is "the lockdowns were useless".
- simonh 5y ago
  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 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.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    Yes, of course. But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point. You can't lockdown the virus away. You can't stop the spread by canceling flights either. Just seems like awful policymaking driven by virtue signaling. Covid is here forever, and that's life.
    - FourHand451 5y ago
      > But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point. Plenty of people live their whole lives without catching smallpox or polio. We have/can develop effective vaccines for COVID. Why should it be different?
      - beagle3 5y ago
        No people have gone through their life without catching the cold and very few without catching the flu at least once, despite having flu vaccines for a few decades now. Not all viruses are the same, and sarscov2 is much more like cold/flu than polio. Specifically, saracov2 has reservoirs in animals. Unless you had an effective vaccine that also works for cats, dogs, deer etc and the ability to actually deploy it (think wild deer all over the US), it’s here to stay.
        Geezus-42 5y ago
        Create an animal vaccine, give hunters dart guns and free rein to shoot as many as they can. Then see what happens.
- volta83 5y ago
  Good question. Excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 were ~470k and ~580k deaths. The population of the USA and the EU in Jan 2020 was ~329 and ~447 million. The excess mortality in the USA and the EU in 2020 was ~143 vs ~129 excess deaths per 100.000 inhabitants. The USA had ~10% more excess deaths per capita than the EU. People living in the EU during 2020 had statistically a significantly better chance of not dying of COVID than people living in the USA, even though COVID hit the EU first, which gave the USA longer time to prepare. This doesn't really answer your question, because the answer is very personal. Some people were really scared and preferred to trade some freedom for more safety. And well we have many examples of vocal famous people that traded off safety for freedom, and died of COVID. These people would have probably been better off had they lived in the EU, even if they would have been breaking the law and paying fines.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    I wouldn't call 10% difference significantly higher... more like within the margin of error. With such drastic policy differences you would expect to see a larger effect.
    - r00fus 5y ago
      Well, I'd say the biggest difference was that in the EU, many countries would give you 80% unemployment to stay home for many months. In the US, you'd get a few thousand $, many months later. So yeah, you might have had a similar chance to catch COVID but your livelihood and financial security were much more secure in Europe. Policy-wise w/r/t COVID, EU and US are nowhere near NZ, Tiawan or China. Now that's containment taken seriously and it shows.
      - adam_arthur 5y ago
        Many in the US made significantly more on the combination of enhanced unemployment and stimulus checks than they had made working. Greater than 100% previous wage. You can see the aggregate personal income data here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI

draw_down 5y ago

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-ANGELIQUE-COETZEE-discovered-Omicron-says-reacting-threat.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10256373/Dr-ANGEL...

shmatt 5y ago
She, as a family doctor, was fast to alert from the front lines. But she is not an infectious disease specialist. The first doctors seeing HIV cases in California without knowing what it was, yet alerting the medical community, were not the same people who brought us the current medication that controls it Her position on the front lines is very important. But the decision on how dangerous the variant is should be given to those who specialize in just that (and would probably suck at diagnosing you with a stomach ulcer)
y4mi 5y ago
i don't have any domain knowledge so i cannot build an opinion on the matter, but the fact that they discovered it doesn't give them more authority on the topic then everyone else. most researchers i've heard on the topic only said "we will have to pay close attention to it", which sounds pretty reasonable from my uneducated perspective.
- tremon 5y ago
  Both the name and the picture in the article would suggest that "he" is, in all likelihood, a she.
  - junon 5y ago
    Wtf is your goal with this comment?
  - y4mi 5y ago
    I corrected it to they, sorry for using a gendered pronoun. It sometimes slips my mind, as I never really thought about "he" being male in this kind of context. I will pay more attention to it.

rossdavidh 5y ago

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, one way or the other. But if Omicron and Delta compete, then it seems plausible that the existing vaccines would at least help a bit with the severity of symptoms.

tgv 5y ago
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.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  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.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I don't see how a mutation, no matter what, being more infectious is good news. The fact it (and Delta for that matter) was allowed to mutate in the first place is already pretty telling that the approach used to stem the tide was not effective.
jsnell 5y ago
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.

thomcano 5y ago

Let's do our jobs properly to minimize the spread of the Omicron variant as possible; this will help our health works and researchers somehow.

christmm 5y ago

I find that the most relevant information is given by Dr Fauci. Everyone needs to trust the science and Dr Fauci, and stop reading anything else when we know the rest is misinformation.

digitalsushi 5y ago
I trust science and I trust Fauci but if I am learning anything from the current tense, it's that we should push back on idolization