Coronavirus (Covid-19) informational thread

[poorcody]

First big Omicron study from UK was just released today (not peer-reviewed yet) from the Imperial College of London (led by well-known Neil Ferguson). Covers hundreds of thousands of people since the end of November. Major conclusions:

• "No evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time."
• 5.4 times greater chance of reinfection compared to Delta (immunity from previous infection only 19%)
• "...vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose."
• The distribution of Omicron by age, region and ethnicity currently differs markedly from Delta, with 18–29-year-olds, residents in the London region, and those of African ethnicity having significantly higher rates of infection with Omicron relative to Delta

Coverage:

Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses | Imperial News | Imperial College London

The Omicron variant largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses according to the latest Imperial modelling.

www.imperial.ac.uk

Study Link:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2021-12-16-COVID19-Report-49.pdf

 

[dannyyankou]

• "No evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time."

"We don't know" would've been fine

 

[iOS Geek]

"We don't know" would've been fine

This is why I have a problem with the messaging. This makes it sound bad, when in reality, what it actually IS…is “we don’t know”.

Two years into this and the world hasn’t learned **** about messaging. It’s infuriating. If you have very limited data…”no evidence of lower severity” is NOT how it should be phrased. Because due to very limited data, you could ALSO say “no evidence of it being AS severe as delta. Making that statement the way they did leaves it open to so many possible miscommunications that could come back to bite them at a later time. Much like the mistake about saying we didn’t need masks came back to bite them. And let’s not forget that the vaccine was touted as our way out of this and it’s turning out to not be as effective (at pretty much anything)…as we were told. Effective...yes. But not as effective as what we were sold on.

 

[Hirakata]

This is why I have a problem with the messaging. This makes it sound bad, when in reality, what it actually IS…is “we don’t know”.

Two years into this and the world hasn’t learned **** about messaging.

The world has learned everything about messaging in the past two years. They made it sound bad because that is how they wanted it to sound...

 

[poorcody]

"We don't know" would've been fine

That's not what it said. Specifically the report says: "Hospitalisation and asymptomatic infection indicators were not significantly associated with Omicron infection, suggesting at most limited changes in severity compared with Delta."

More data is needed, but the data they have now points to a similar level of severity. The limited data could have pointed to less severity: it did not. The limited data could have been inconclusive: it was not.

 

[400]

That report also highlights the need for boosters, if I am reading it correctly the possible outcome is with no booster inlace is terrible.

 

[Mainsail]

At this point, I think we are getting close to just get vaccinated (+boosted) and then go live your life. Caveat: If you are part of the at-risk demographic (e.g. elderly), you may have to live with self imposed restrictions like only attending indoor gatherings where you know everyone is vaccinated and tested ahead of time. If you are a young person that is vaccinated and boosted, you can probably just live your life as normal. The odds are that cases will resolve themselves with mild symptoms for those young folks that are vaccinated and boosted. Closing universities full of fully vaccinated 20 somethings isnt going to help. They are still going to clubs and parties. That isn't going to change. Meanwhile, we have stadiums full of people at football and basketball games. They wear masks walking in and then take them off and scream for their team. This is all becoming just a bunch of performance art. Creating rules and restrictions for the general population that appear virtuous, but are completely useless and almost impossible to follow. A couple of days ago California reinstated state-wide indoor mask mandates. I had a beer with my friend last night, we literally walked in with our masks and sat at the bar next to 20 people we don't know and took off our masks along with everyone else. Performance art. It was warm inside, so the bartenders and servers wearing mask mostly had them pulled down to their chins so they could breath and talk. More performance art.

If the CDC wants to truly reduce the hospitalizations and deaths, they need to issue guidance that reflects the truth about this disease. The vast majority of deaths and serious illnesses are elderly or unvaccinated. Those severe illnesses that are not elderly are obese or have some other significant health issues. We need to start focusing on protections and increasing awareness for these groups of people rather than casting a broad net and trying to change the behavior of our whole society. For two years, we have tried changing the behavior of the general population and it just hasn't worked. And with COVID burn out and vaccination protection, it will be even more difficult. Why? Because the majority of the population probably perceive the risk of severe illness and death to be low for their demographic if they are vaccinated (+boosted). Why? Well, our experts have been telling people for almost a year that if they get vaccinated they get excellent protection from severe illness. Either that is true or it isn't. If we go back to broad restrictions now, we will completely destroy the messaging on vaccinations. Enough damage was done when they reversed their position on masking for vaccinated folks. Shut downs would be the death nail.

 

[poorcody]

Until we know more about Omicron, please have some sympathy for the health care workers at the very least and take maximum precautions. The little we do know points to widespread hospitalizations even for mild-severity. Given that most health-care workers were boosted many months ago, they may be particularly vulnerable to breakthrough infections which are looking common with Omicron. They are probably going to get hit hard from both directions, on top of a grueling two years... Omicron is clearly going to spread widely in a bar of unmasked people, vaccinated or not.

Highly vaccinated countries thought they were over the worst. Denmark says the pandemic’s toughest month is just beginning.

In a country that tracks the spread of coronavirus variants as closely as any in the world, the signals have never been more concerning.

www.washingtonpost.com

 

[CNebs]

Love how some just think oh damn elderly watch yourself and isolate. It’s not just the elderly, it’s cancer patients on immunotherapy meds, it’s transplant recipients and others that are immunocompromised. These span all ages and their lives are no less important than someone who is healthy and vaccinated. You may not even know the person next to you that looks to be the pillar of health is actually fighting to stay alive because the meds they have to take prevent an immune response after being vaccinated.

I guess whatever helps people sleep at night until it happens to you or a family member.

 

[Mainsail]

Love how some just think oh damn elderly watch yourself and isolate. It’s not just the elderly, it’s cancer patients on immunotherapy meds, it’s transplant recipients and others that are immunocompromised. These span all ages and their lives are no less important than someone who is healthy and vaccinated. You may not even know the person next to you that looks to be the pillar of health is actually fighting to stay alive because the meds they have to take prevent an immune response after being vaccinated.

I guess whatever helps people sleep at night until it happens to you or a family member.

Fine. We can keep doing the same thing over and over and hope for a different result. Or, we can take a targeted approach, and focus on those most vulnerable. We can live in the world we wish existed, or we can live in the world that does exist.

 

[CNebs]

The thing is people aren’t, the U.S. hasn’t done nearly the same as countries that have had greater success. I live in an area that is 36% vaccinated and no one wears a mask because people think or wish the pandemic was over. You know the saying wish in one hand and s in the other. I want things to be back to normal, but it won’t be for me since I am immunosuppressed and I can accept that fact. Apparently for some wearing a mask is too much to get through quicker than we are currently. Also the I won’t do it because you know cause freedoms and got to own those libs by dying at our own expense. To prove what point?

If we look to history The Spanish Flu lasted for ~3 years so be prepared for another year of this until the vaccine, the body’s immune system continues to learn the virus, and the virus finds a derivative that sustains itself as an endemic. The current flu we live with is a derivative of the Spanish Flu. Yet people get that vaccine yearly.

So yea fine, let’s have more people be asymptomatic, or assume a cough or sniffles is a cold and not a novel virus just like a family member that was recently admitted due to someone else not taking the proper precautions by masking up or better yet staying home like they should of done. Now that person isn’t expected to make it since they’re a cancer patient. Yes they had both shots, but I suspect they had no immune response or one that provided no protection. Let’s continue to bury our head in the sand that an airborne respiratory virus with Delta having an R value of 5-8 and with Omicron being able to spread 70 times faster than Delta that number will only rise. Since burying our head in the sand and being selfish will get us out quicker, because 800K deaths and still in a pandemic has proven that seems to have worked splendidly.

The other problem has been messaging at the start and sadly throughout this pandemic. 90% efficacy of a vaccine does NOT mean you can’t get infected, it gives you a greater chance of survival. Yet for some reason people thought that **** was some sort of force field. Vaccines are just like practice for your body, your immune systems gets practice for when it’s game day.

Yet instead we’d rather be the embodiment of this well know meme.

 

[bradl]

Love how some just think oh damn elderly watch yourself and isolate. It’s not just the elderly, it’s cancer patients on immunotherapy meds, it’s transplant recipients and others that are immunocompromised. These span all ages and their lives are no less important than someone who is healthy and vaccinated. You may not even know the person next to you that looks to be the pillar of health is actually fighting to stay alive because the meds they have to take prevent an immune response after being vaccinated.

I guess whatever helps people sleep at night until it happens to you or a family member.

Fine. We can keep doing the same thing over and over and hope for a different result. Or, we can take a targeted approach, and focus on those most vulnerable. We can live in the world we wish existed, or we can live in the world that does exist.

Umm.. I don’t know if the both of you know, but you’re agreeing with each other. I mean, both arguments are congruent.

An example: today I was at our local Sam’s Club. An idiot of a member who decided to try to enter maskless went on a tirade about masks and that COVID is a hoax, and all but yelled at a what looked to be a 9-year old child who was wearing a mask. Never mind that he said nothing about the elderly couple that came in, with one of them being in a motorized cart and wearing masks.

He was promptly told to leave, with the person greeting everyone coming in apologizing to the child, who was living with and beating leukemia and needed her mask.

My point: both sides of this are important, but we’ll continue to have this problem while idiocracy prevails.

BL.

 

[CNebs]

You are correct and my response wasn’t directed to the individual who quoted my post. I was trying to highlight the additional problems we face, need to understand how pandemics and vaccines work, and that these take time. The quicker we understand that we all have to buy in and protect each other it will continue to be longer than it needs to be for the majority.

As I mentioned I have no problem wearing a mask now and going forward. I already know my body has mounted no response from the vaccines due to the combination of meds I’m on and again I’m fine with that too. I’m not afraid of death, I’ve stared it down many times in my life. What I am afraid of is not being here for my kids. I prefer death comes a knockin much later.

So yes there should be targeted approaches in which I failed to mention to agree with, but we also need a all hands on deck collaborative effort and I don’t see that happening now or at all to be honest.

I’ve been home since 3/11/2020 and back then I said I just need to make it to a vaccine, now I don’t even know what it is I need to make it to next, because I watch all the selfishness around me.

I will add for those that have been vaccinated, boosted, wear a mask (properly), practice social distancing, and realize when presenting symptoms of a respiratory virus to just stay home instead of risking it, you all are heroes to me. For that I am grateful.

 

[dannyyankou]

I get why we're being cautious about Omicron and I think it's the smart thing to do. But the little data we have on it so far is looking really good. Yes, Omicron is a lot more contagious. But probably a lot more mild. I look at Omicron as the bad guy in a movie that turned good and fought the even badder guy (Delta) to save mankind.

 

[bradl]

I get why we're being cautious about Omicron and I think it's the smart thing to do. But the little data we have on it so far is looking really good. Yes, Omicron is a lot more contagious. But probably a lot more mild. I look at Omicron as the bad guy in a movie that turned good and fought the even badder guy (Delta) to save mankind.

You bring up an interesting question.. could a variant be resequenced/tailored to fight another variant?

BL.

 

[dannyyankou]

You bring up an interesting question.. could a variant be resequenced/tailored to fight another variant?

BL.

You know what, I had that same thought last week. That sounds risky though to engineer a virus in a lab for that purpose. I'm sure it's possible though, those experiments are done (gain of function)

 

[400]

Caveat: If you are part of the at-risk demographic (e.g. elderly), you may have to live with self imposed restrictions like only attending indoor gatherings where you know everyone is vaccinated and tested ahead of time.

London Mayor just declared an emergency. I understand this is so agencies can work better together but also part of it is the NHS (UK health care) is losing staff as they isolate, as well as fire brigade and other front line staff. We are up there with the number of jabs (apparently).

What do you do when you have a car accident or fall and break a leg. No fire brigade to cut you out, ambulances thin on the ground and stuck at A+E, really does need a holistic approach top down, all the nations. Health service in the UK has been hammered. They have had no let up.

Also people need to think outside their countries. UK rates are sky rocketing, Dutch are in full lockdown today till 14 Jan, France have stopped UK folk going there.

Meanwhile the rates in the UK continue to rocket. Recent House of Commons enquiry, one of our top medicals reckons r rate in the UK 3-5 with this new variant.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Well my husband wants to take the kids to soft play today. I’m saying no indoor activities, outdoors only. I’ve suggested a petting zoo with reindeer. I’m doubly vaccinated and boosted. Husband has had two vaccines but isn’t getting his booster until Tuesday. Kids are unvaccinated as vaccines haven’t been approved for their age groups in my country yet. I don’t think it’s worth risking an indoor activity especially with the current rates of Covid in the UK right now.

 

[polyphenol]

Love how some just think oh damn elderly watch yourself and isolate. It’s not just the elderly, it’s cancer patients on immunotherapy meds, it’s transplant recipients and others that are immunocompromised. These span all ages and their lives are no less important than someone who is healthy and vaccinated. You may not even know the person next to you that looks to be the pillar of health is actually fighting to stay alive because the meds they have to take prevent an immune response after being vaccinated.

I guess whatever helps people sleep at night until it happens to you or a family member.

There are plenty of disorders where there is still very little fully analysed published evidence about the impact of both Covid itself (still less, by each variant) and of vaccinations. Including the efficacy of vaccinations. For example, some autoimmune disorders.

 

[CNebs]

There are plenty of disorders where there is still very little fully analysed published evidence about the impact of both Covid itself (still less, by each variant) and of vaccinations. Including the efficacy of vaccinations. For example, some autoimmune disorders.

Correct, when the vaccines were going through their required trials people who are immunocompromised were not part of the studies. When Johns Hopkins created a study I joined and was able to find out that after my two does I was negative for antibodies. The study then looked to see if a third dose would illicit a response and I was able to get a third dose before it was approved. I was one of only thirty people to get a third dose for the study, as a third dose under the emergency use agreement was not allowed at the time. While I was finally positive, it was a low positive response. My antibody level was less than half the healthy population. Through the study I have watched my antibody level in ~6 months post third dose go back to negative. I have received a fourth dose and awaiting the results to see what kind of response it has provided.

Knowing this and knowing current data shows organ transplant recipients have a 1 in 10 chance of dying, I don’t like those odds. Then if you break it down to specific organ transplant, mine is 3 in 10. So while Omicron may be milder for the general population, my community will still see death from the virus and from transplant surgeries being delayed due to people flooding the hospitals. It also means for the healthy population you may not get the surgery you need, you may be at higher risk if you need to go to an ER for issues non-COVID related. People also need to understand that when hospitals say they’re out of beds, they’re not a furniture store, it means they don’t have enough staff to man the beds. As you can imagine I stay pretty engrained with those in the medical community and one doctor I keep in touch with said Omicron may make the last two years look easy with how quickly this variant spreads and what they’re seeing at their hospital and region. Its the unvaccinated and transplant recipients that are dying. It’s not a time to panic hearing that, but it means get a real mask such as a KN94/95 mask, wear it properly, hold gatherings outdoors if you can, if not open windows, get a MERV13 filter for your HVAC, get boosted or finally get vaccinated.

I mentioned that you may not know the person next to you is like me since I appear healthy. I want things back to normal for everyone and so my kids can enjoy as much as a normal childhood as they can, even though for me it will be forever different. People need to rally around each other instead of being so divisive. The virus gives zero f’s about what you look like, what your beliefs are, and just like the virus I don’t either but it would be nice for people to have some compassion and empathy for their fellow man and do the right thing by others.

I’m done.

 

[Gregg2]

If we look to history The Spanish Flu lasted for ~3 years so be prepared for another year of this until the vaccine, the body’s immune system continues to learn the virus, and the virus finds a derivative that sustains itself as an endemic. The current flu we live with is a derivative of the Spanish Flu. Yet some people get that vaccine yearly.

Fixed that for you. Last time I saw stats about how many in the US get a flu shot, it was less that half (of adults, I think) ...somewhere in the low 40s as I recall.

 

[CNebs]

Fixed that for you. Last time I saw stats about how many in the US get a flu shot, it was less that half (of adults, I think) ...somewhere in the low 40s as I recall.

Aww congrats the good old here I fixed that for you so you can feel good about yourself. Yes I knew that but you also know fully well what I meant with my statement. People get it without making a fuss, yelling that it’s to control me, it’s got trackers, it makes me magnetic, it’s 5G, COVID is a hoax so I ain’t getting it, on and on. You have proven my point instead of empathy and compassion there’s always one out there.

Additionally the following:

1918 - Spanish Flu pandemic
Your grandma survives and passes the antibodies to your mom
Your mom continues to be exposed to variants over time and passes the antibodies to you
You are born with a level of immunity to better deal with the derivatives over time
Booster to help with potential strains of concern and for those that have weakened immune systems. So yes it’s not critical to be vaccinated. You are though potentially protecting others. Again showing compassion and empathy for others.

2019 - COVID
NO ONE’S IMMUNE SYSTEM HAS BEEN EXPOSED!
Hence a novel virus.
Vaccines to help get back to normal quicker and other protocols such as proper masking.
Imagine if this virus had the capacity like other pandemics and you had a up to 90% die off rate. Look at the Native Americans and small pox being introduced, their population was reduced from 11 million to 1 million thanks to settlers. Smallpox still has a 30% die off rate. Let’s use round numbers 8 billion people and let’s propose COVID had a 30% die off rate that’s a 2.4 billion die off rate. Are we all really ok with that risk in the future with another virus our bodies have never seen before?

Your “fixed it” didn’t fix much at all.

 

[scubachap]

Like 400, I'm in the UK and thought some of you might be interested in my anecdoatal 'on the ground' experience of this third Omnicron wave particularly as my daughter tested positive a couple of days ago.

It does feel different to the previous waves - the first felt distant but scary, the second just ahead of the jab rollout was horrible, I knew a couple of people who died and everyone I knew who had it even in a 'mild' form said you really don't want to get it as it seemed to last for a fortnight and was worse than the worst flu they'd ever had and took weeks to get back to normal afterwards. However, it did feel at the time that if you isolated somewhat and masked up you had at least a decent chance of avoiding it and despite my partner being teacher and the kids being at college we somehow still managed to avoid it.

This third wave seems very different. Three weeks ago we all cautiously planning Xmas get togethers and meals out etc. but fast forward two weeks and literally everyone I know, unless they were previously infected, has a case in their household and we're all having to cancel everything and self-isolate. It's happened so fast and seems so rampant that it feels the only way to avoid it would have been to avoid all contact with anyone else which for most of us is impossible. However, in this wave I've yet to hear of anyone who has experienced anything more than cold like symptoms. My daughter has had a headache, a bit of a sore throat and is tired and after a couple of days she's recovering. Despite constant contact with our daughter none of the rest of us in our household are testing positive. (Me and my partner - 2x AZ + Pfizer booster, my other daughter 1 x Pfizer). Other people I know are reporting the same thing and similar symptoms if symptomatic.

So if our experience is anything to go by it does feel milder, but who knows though, hospital cases might well rocket up but the big issue here at the moment seems to be self-solation (which I guess has to happen) following infections. My daughter is now off work for 10 days, as are most of her work colleagues and our Xmas is cancelled. More importantly though the shop she's works at now has no staff it seemed to only take a day to infect everyone in it despite masking etc. (That didn't seem to happen like that in the previous waves.) I'm not surprised that there been a emergency declared here in London as the same thing must happening in the hospitals in terms of staff numbers.

My advice would be that if you can access a booster, to make sure you take it especially if you're over 40 as you won't be able to avoid exposure to this one - and to do daily lateral flows as many of us have only known they've got it through such tests. We picked up my daughter's infection through one just ahead of a proposed trip to my elderly mum.

 

[Mainsail]

Like 400, I'm in the UK and thought some of you might be interested in my anecdoatal 'on the ground' experience of this third Omnicron wave particularly as my daughter tested positive a couple of days ago.

It does feel different to the previous waves - the first felt distant but scary, the second just ahead of the jab rollout was horrible, I knew a couple of people who died and everyone I knew who had it even in a 'mild' form said you really don't want to get it as it seemed to last for a fortnight and was worse than the worst flu they'd ever had and took weeks to get back to normal afterwards. However, it did feel at the time that if you isolated somewhat and masked up you had at least a decent chance of avoiding it and despite my partner being teacher and the kids being at college we somehow still managed to avoid it.

This third wave seems very different. Three weeks ago we all cautiously planning Xmas get togethers and meals out etc. but fast forward two weeks and literally everyone I know, unless they were previously infected, has a case in their household and we're all having to cancel everything and self-isolate. It's happened so fast and seems so rampant that it feels the only way to avoid it would have been to avoid all contact with anyone else which for most of us is impossible. However, in this wave I've yet to hear of anyone who has experienced anything more than cold like symptoms. My daughter has had a headache, a bit of a sore throat and is tired and after a couple of days she's recovering. Despite constant contact with our daughter none of the rest of us in our household are testing positive. (Me and my partner - 2x AZ + Pfizer booster, my other daughter 1 x Pfizer). Other people I know are reporting the same thing and similar symptoms if symptomatic.

So if our experience is anything to go by it does feel milder, but who knows though, hospital cases might well rocket up but the big issue here at the moment seems to be self-solation (which I guess has to happen) following infections. My daughter is now off work for 10 days, as are most of her work colleagues and our Xmas is cancelled. More importantly though the shop she's works at now has no staff it seemed to only take a day to infect everyone in it despite masking etc. (That didn't seem to happen like that in the previous waves.) I'm not surprised that there been a emergency declared here in London as the same thing must happening in the hospitals in terms of staff numbers.

My advice would be that if you can access a booster, to make sure you take it especially if you're over 40 as you won't be able to avoid exposure to this one - and to do daily lateral flows as many of us have only known they've got it through such tests. We picked up my daughter's infection through one just ahead of a proposed trip to my elderly mum.

I agree wholeheartedly. Your daughter's experience is very similar to my daughter (who is a grad student in the US). Almost everyone (18/22) that went to the holiday party my daughter attended got infected. Everyone was vaccinated. Over half were boosted. Everyone was tested weekly per University protocol. All of those infected have had mild symptoms. Zero hospitalizations. These are all young healthy folks, so I am not totally surprised.

This wave feels different. It is extremely hard to avoid getting infected unless you live in isolation. I am not sure shut downs and lockdowns will work, since people are pretty burned out and the perceived risk to younger vaccinated people is pretty low. The important thing is to not over stretch the hospitals, and the vaccines seem to be pretty effective against severe illness. In the US, almost 100% of those over 65 y.o. have had at least one shot, and we need all of these folks to get fully vaccinated and boosted when eligible. As for the unvaccinated, I don't know what to say. At this point, these folks seem so firmly entrenched that it is unlikely they will get vaccinated.

There is another big challenge. The messaging around vaccination will probably need to change. We are seeing more and more breakthrough infections of people that are vaccinated and boosted. With this wave, it appears that the big advantage of vaccination is in preventing severe illness not in preventing infection. That has been true for awhile, but it seems especially true with this wave. The anti-vaxers will say, "See, vaccinations don't work. What's the point." We have to emphasize the value of vaccinations in reducing hospitalizations and deaths.

 

[chown33]

The FDA has given emergency use authorization to the Pfizer anti-COVID pill, Paxlovid:

First doses of Paxlovid, Pfizer's new COVID pill, are released to states