[HN Gopher] Update on Omicron ___________________________________________________________________ Update on Omicron Author : hh3k0 Score : 129 points Date : 2021-11-28 21:10 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.who.int) (TXT) w3m dump (www.who.int) | duxup wrote: | I would love for a COVID variation for with low severity illness | to become dominant ... forever? | adolph wrote: | I expect this to be the case since decreased severity is | associated with higher virus reproduction. The main question | becomes second order effects. | orra wrote: | We definitely shouldn't oversimplify. Delta was | simultaneously more infectious and more deadly than the | original variant. | | Virus mutations can be better for us, and they can be worse. | This article | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095397/ paints | a sensibly nuanced picture. | easytiger wrote: | > Delta was simultaneously more infectious and more deadly | than the original variant. | | That's not my understanding | orra wrote: | It's well known it's more infectious, and widely | suspected to be more deadly. See both | https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why- | is-de... and | https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta- | var... | gitfan86 wrote: | We don't know for sure, because a lot of people with and | without symptoms got tested regularly. | flerovium wrote: | This is not necessarily the case for a virus with such a long | period of asymptomatic transmission. | | There is very little selective pressure for the virus to | become less deadly; in fact, higher viron count is positively | associated with both transmissibility and mortality. | elevaet wrote: | Exactly. People overlook this fact constantly. There is no | selection pressure for a virus like this to become more or | less deadly. Just pressure to become more transmissible | within our mixture of vaxxed, unvaxed, and some natural | immunity. | loceng wrote: | Yup, tradeoffs forced to select towards survival. | PeterisP wrote: | For people, the difference between 2% and 0.2% mortality is | huge, but for the virus (and the evolutionary pressures on | it), the difference between 98% and 99.8% chance of | continuing to spread is insignificant; any minor changes in | the rate of spread far outweigh that. The evolutionary | pressure towards survival of the host matter only for | diseases with very high lethality. | janmo wrote: | Being more severe and deadly is not necessarily a | propagation disadvantage. Because if you sick you stay at | home and don't go out. If you are very sick, you need to go | to the doctor, or the hospital. This can create more | spread. | throwhauser wrote: | > Yup, tradeoffs forced to select towards survival. | | Viruses don't have a plan, or intent. It's not impossible | for a virus to screw itself over and kill off all its | hosts, or one species of hosts. | | https://www.wired.com/2008/11/yes-disease-can/ | jazzyjackson wrote: | wow, suddenly I feel like the film "Venom" was trying to | teach me this, it's no good for the virus if it keeps | killing its hosts, really its mutating itself while | searching for a host that can coexist with it (as I | understand it, much of our DNA is incorporated from | viruses, but I don't understand it very well :) | mcbits wrote: | It already coexisted with a host: bats. If we're going to | anthropromorphize the virus, maybe it's searching for a | way to kill off one of the biggest predators of its | preferred host. | [deleted] | monopoledance wrote: | Not inherently. Good counter example is the delta variant, | which was worse in every aspect. | somewhereoutth wrote: | Not true I'm afraid. | | Of course, if a virus killed you before you had a chance to | pass it on then yes - but most viruses (including SARS-CoV-2) | kill you slowly enough to have plenty of opportunity to | propagate, there is no selection pressure to be less deadly. | | To my knowledge, we have no evidence that _any_ human virus | has evolved to become less virulent (please furnish examples | if I 'm wrong!). | | Unfortunately this common myth, that contagiousness is | inversely correlated with lethality, has been used by those | who would wish to downplay this public health disaster for | whatever reason. | danenania wrote: | "To my knowledge, we have no evidence that any human virus | has evolved to become less virulent (please furnish | examples if I'm wrong!)." | | Isn't this what happened with the influenza strain that | caused the Spanish Flu pandemic? | janmo wrote: | I guess the Spanish flue probably did | [deleted] | [deleted] | aetherspawn wrote: | Ok, my 2 cents. | | This happened because there isn't enough vaccines in third world | countries. They can't afford them. The moral of the story? | | It doesn't matter if you 100% vaccinate your western country. | We're all in this together. When COVID spreads in Africa and | makes a new strain, it may as well be on your own doorstep. The | world needs to step up and distribute vaccines to every corner of | the globe, for FREE, or we'll never get out of this. | | The only way you'll stop this thing from mutating into a variant | not covered by the vaccine is by eradicating it everywhere, | simultaneously. | mattrighetti wrote: | If this has been discovered in Africa it doesn't mean that it | originated there in the first place. | newaccount2021 wrote: | even if you produce and freely distribute enough vaccines, you | will never achieve adequate vaccination rates | | there is no "eradicating" covid, that is a non-goal | mr_sturd wrote: | Very true; and even if Omicron turns out to be less dangerous | than previous variants, it's a case of when, not if, a deadlier | variant will emerge from a poorly-vaccinated population. | samwillis wrote: | History shows that as a Virus mutates and evolves they tend | towards more transmissibility but lower morality rate. | Hermel wrote: | I don't think the virus could ever be stopped with today's | vaccines, even if everyone was vaccinated. Data from fully or | almost fully vaccinated countries clearly show that this | doesn't eliminate the virus. It of course helps, but we have to | depart from the idea that the "zero covid" strategies work. | cheaprentalyeti wrote: | If the vaccines are only retarding infection and transmission | instead of blocking it, then all they're doing is giving the | virus a space to evolve in. | belter wrote: | South Africa's COVID-19 adviser, Prof Barry Schoub told Sky News | that so far, most Omicron cases, were mild. | | https://youtu.be/3RSRtuRm92o | | Edit: "South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron | variant says symptoms are 'unusual but mild'" | | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... | | "Dr Angelique Coetzee said she was first alerted to the | possibility of a new variant when patients in her busy private | practice in the capital Pretoria started to come in earlier this | month with Covid-19 symptoms that did not make immediate sense. | | They included young people of different backgrounds and | ethnicities with intense fatigue and a six-year-old child with a | very high pulse rate, she said. None suffered from a loss of | taste or smell." | koheripbal wrote: | This is a novice interpretation of the data. Most early cases | are recorded as mild. Severe cases and hospitalizations lag | infections by 2-3 weeks, and deaths lag by 2-3 months. | | It's frankly irresponsible to report this factoid without that | caveat. | azangru wrote: | > Severe cases and hospitalizations lag infections by 2-3 | weeks | | The starting point in this case would be symptoms onset, | surely? First samples were taken on November 14; the median | time between the onset of symptoms and hospitalization is | 5-10 days; patients have been followed since November 18 [0]. | | [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor- | says-pa... | easytiger wrote: | No more irresponsible that devastating thousands of lives and | businesses over a hysterical piece of zero information | because it is politically expedient | ceejayoz wrote: | https://www.yahoo.com/now/u-k-buying-time-mideast-111736790.... | | > The World Health Organization is urging caution after two | South African health experts, including the doctor who first | sounded the alarm about the omicron variant, indicated that | symptoms linked to the coronavirus strain have been mild so | far. | | > The initial reported infections were among university | students, WHO said, adding that younger patients tend to have | milder symptoms. | | > "Understanding the level of severity of the omicron variant | will take days to several weeks," WHO said in a statement, | adding that "there is currently no information to suggest that | symptoms associated with omicron are different from those from | other variants." | | It's likely too early to tell yet. | belter wrote: | Indeed. Prof Barry Schoub, mentions two times in the | interview that its very early days. | ellyagg wrote: | It is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more | severe disease compared to infections with other variants, | including Delta. | | I thought this was weirdly worded. It's also not clear whether | Omicron disease is less severe, either, right? | | A long time ago, long before the pandemic politicized messaging | so much, a researcher posted a comment here on HN where they | said that virus deadliness and contagiousness were in tension. | pydry wrote: | South Africa is also pissed that they've been cut off from the | rest of the world. They might be downplaying. | tibbon wrote: | I'm not sure I get this assumption. Few other countries were | "pissed off" when borders were closed to them. I still cannot | travel recreationally to Japan from the US, and that's fine. | jjeaff wrote: | I assume if you deal in any kind of tourism/business travel | or travel adjacent business, you wouldn't be too happy | about closing the borders. | tpmx wrote: | https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/covid-omicron-variant- | south-... | | _South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said that new | travel restrictions amid concerns over a heavily mutated | Covid variant are "unjustified."_ | | _He slammed other nations for "wanting to put blame" and | ascribe the variant to South Africa rather than working | collaboratively to address the situation as guided by the | WHO._ | evgen wrote: | And https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59453842 | where '[SA president] Cyril Ramaphosa said he was "deeply | disappointed" by the action, which he described as | unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently | lifted.' | | Your country has a very low vaccination rate and you are | ground zero for a new variant, but feel the need to be | "deeply disappointed" that others trying to slow the | spread slightly may impact your tourism industry... | tpmx wrote: | Also note that the low vaccination rate in SA is _not_ | due to a lack of vaccine availability. | | https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south- | africa-... | lkbm wrote: | Ground Zero was Botswana[0]. South Africa is the country | leading the research and monitoring because they have an | exceptionally strong epidemiological community and | facilities. | | (And, yes, a very low vaccination rate.) | | [0] https://www.dw.com/en/covid-what-we-know-about-the- | omicron-v... | chasil wrote: | This new variant has been called "mild." | | I hope this proves to be true, and is not used as an excuse for | another lockdown. | | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... | r721 wrote: | From the OP article: | | >There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms | associated with Omicron are different from those from other | variants. Initial reported infections were among university | students--younger individuals who tend to have more mild | disease--but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron | variant will take days to several weeks. | ajmurmann wrote: | Why do you say "excuse for another lockdown"? Are you implying | that someone in government has alterior motives to desire a | lockdown? | marchingtomars wrote: | It doesn't have to be someone in government. | | It could be a group of people acting strategically towards a | particular goal, in a series of steps. Those steps would | include paying funds for the following: Lobbying governmental | officials across all three branches, Strategically networking | & "giving gifts" (quid pro quo), Sponsoring scientific | studies, Paying journalists to report certain things. | | For example, Amazon Executives have a financial interests in | reducing competition from independent retailers ("Mom & Pop | shops"). A lockdown would certainly boost Amazon's position | in that case. And Bezos does own the Washington Post. | | By the way, have you heard of Operation Mockingbird [1]? | | "Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of | the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that | began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to | manipulate news media for propaganda purposes." | | "According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird | recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda | network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA | support of front groups was exposed when a 1967 Ramparts | magazine article reported that the National Student | Association received funding from the CIA. In 1975, Church | Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency | connections with journalists and civic groups." | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird | markdown wrote: | But what about the frogs turning gay? | legostormtroopr wrote: | Estrogen and estrogen-like plastics in waterways is a | huge problem. Some people mis interpreted it, but that | doesn't discount the fact that plastics are a huge | problem that are interfering with nature. | | https://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen- | hermaphrodite... | john_moscow wrote: | You can always follow the money to see who benefits from a | decision, and who gets penalized. | | The initial lockdowns penalized many small businesses (small | shops, hairdressers) that could not operate and benefited | large online retailers and chains like Walmart that were | declared exempt, that got extra business. | | The lockdowns also justified large-scale payout of benefits, | that were funded by increasing the money supply. This | benefited the owners of limited-supply assets (stocks, real | estate, even the f*cking crypto) at the expense of people | with cash savings and those with fixed/slowly changing income | (most salaried employees). | | Since most members of government are major real estate owners | and stock investors, they absolutely had benefited from the | lockdown-related economic measures more than an average | salaried employee. | | It is also notable that the effects of increasing the money | supply are delayed. We are starting to see the inevitable | rise of inflation over a year after the start of the | pandemic. It will take a long time for it to taper down, and | we are yet to see how it will affect the average quality of | life (i.e. salary/expense ratio). | soared wrote: | So you're just ignoring the countless lives saved and lost? | XorNot wrote: | That would be devastating to their argument, so of course | they are. | | Though I'm impressed they're literally making the | "lockdowns are being driven by _Big Delivery Service_ " | argument. | Negitivefrags wrote: | I think the ulterior motive is ass-covering. | | If you don't order a lockdown and it was needed then lots of | people die, this is very bad. | | If you do order a lockdown and it wasn't needed then you can | say that you were just being safe. And it's hard to even tell | when a lockdown wasn't needed because the very act of doing | it changes the result and leads to less cases. The lockdown | was successful! | | It's always easy to say "We did it to save lives" and few | people will hold you to account for it. | nnvvhh wrote: | "Ass-covering" is a really uncharitable synonym of "being | prudent." | jjeaff wrote: | Ya, to me, ass covering is much more like trying to | rewrite history after the fact, downplaying the virus, or | maybe trying to hide statistics like nursing home deaths | in your state. | deltaonefour wrote: | Such a one sided view. Let me tell you the truth of the | matter. | | Government is made out of multitudes of personalities and | conflicting interests. There are those that care, there are | those that don't care, there are scientists, there are | people who are knowledgeable of the proper action and there | are those who are emotional and everything in between | exists as well. | | It is a hodge podge of motives. Classifying government | action in a singular light as if it was one ulterior ass | covering agenda is a lie people tell themselves when they | need something to blame. | Negitivefrags wrote: | I don't understand how what you are saying refutes ass- | covering at all. Yes, you have a pile of people in | government with all sorts of opinions, but ultimately | there is someone who has to make the decision. | | If you present that person with a cloud of information | from a bunch of different conflicting sources it actually | incentivises ass-covering even more. | | You say "ulterior ass covering agenda" but an Agenda is | entirely the opposite of what an ass-coverer has. | | When you don't know what you should do, you pick safe | option that nobody is going to blame you for. | deltaonefour wrote: | I didn't refute anything just like the original statement | didn't prove anything. To do this you require evidence. | Neither of us offered anything concrete so we are in a | discussion where we only offer opinions. | | Additionally my statement itself doesn't refute ass | covering. All I am saying is that the government is too | complex to classify it as a singular entity out to cover | it's own ass. | | Several things cause me to disagree with you. Some of the | most best science is being done by people who are part of | or have high influence in the government. There are | definitely people up there who view the problem as a | situation that needs to be resolved rather then an every | man for himself type of deal you seem to characterize it | as. | | As I said, the government is a hodge podge of both. This | has both benefits and downsides. | | An example of a government that tries to act as a | singular entity is China. In terms of stopping covid in | its' tracks China done better than the hodge podge | government that makes up US democracy. However, in terms | of stopping covid from spreading out of Wuhan, Chinas' | ass covering is what screwed up the world. There's good | and bad to either methodology and It's too complicated to | characterize. | BoxOfRain wrote: | Arse covering is as good ulterior motive as any, something | anyone who's dealt with large organisations of any sort will | attest to. | | I'd argue the reason governments obsess over marginally | effective at best measures like masks is that they give | society the opportunity to wag their fingers and exercise the | usual moral authoritarianism at their neighbours instead of | blaming the politicians for their various inadequacies | throughout the pandemic (including in the UK's case running | the NHS into the ground with cuts a decade before in their | usual miserly short-sightedness). | skrowl wrote: | Lockdowns lead to one of the largest transfers of wealth in | history | | https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/cramer-the-pandemic-led- | to-a... | | All those mom and pop businesses? FORCED CLOSED, many didn't | make it through | | Wal*mart, Amazon, Home Depot, etc? NO RESTRICTIONS AT ALL, | LOL WEAR A CLOTH MASK | Hamuko wrote: | Haven't Walmart, Amazon et all been eating mom and pop | businesses for years now? | aortega wrote: | >Are you implying that someone in government has alterior | motives to desire a lockdown? | | They have obvious ulterior motives. Political motives, or | ass-covering. If they don't do a lockdown they will be | utterly attacked by the opposition for 'not being proactive | enough' no matter if there is only one more death. | | I believe this is the principal motive, health being a | distant second. Remember, governments act first to get votes, | second to help population. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Do you really mean that government acts primarily to avoid | being voted out of office? Should we be shocked or | disgusted by that? | | I guess someone like Putin doesn't have to be worried about | being unelected, so they were able to go soft on the virus | in Russia. But, I don't think that turned out well for | them. | nicoburns wrote: | So... the government is acting in what they perceive the | population overall wants. That motive doesn't sound very | ulterior to me. | [deleted] | AnthonyMouse wrote: | COVID is bad. When cases spike, people naturally take steps | to avoid getting infected. They also want other people to do | the same. | | The problem is that some steps are more conspicuous than | others and that doesn't always align with efficacy. An | obvious example is wearing a mask vs. washing your hands. | They're both effective measures, but one can be seen by | anyone and the other happens in the privacy of your bathroom, | so one gets politicized and over-emphasized even if they're | both of similar importance. | | It works the same way for politicians. If things are going | poorly, they're expected to do something. But their incentive | is to do things that are conspicuous, even if they have a | high cost and therefore a low cost/benefit ratio. | | Almost any kind of mandate falls into this category because | the cost/benefit for doing that thing is going to depend on | individual characteristics. "Stay at home" may be a better | strategy for someone who lives with amiable people than | someone who lives alone and suffers from depression, or who | lives with an abuser, but blanket mandates don't distinguish | them. And yet when cases spike, Something Must Be Done. | legostormtroopr wrote: | On the one hand, people have been claiming for years that the | world is sleep walking into authoritarian, kleptocratic | fascism. | | On the other hand, if you are even slightly sceptical that | the same authoritarians might be using lockdowns to make | public protest illegal and overstep civil liberties you are a | conspiracy-believing, alt-right moron. | jjeaff wrote: | Are there any examples in the US of using lockdowns to make | public protest illegal? | deltaonefour wrote: | He knows. He just needs to make up an alternate reality to | justify his own darkness. | | On some level many of us simply don't give a shit about the | fact that the virus can slaughter millions. We just don't | think it will affect us and we don't want to be locked down. | It's like a heroin addict. He knows the reality of his | addiction but he needs to make up a reality to justify | shoving one more injection into his veins, just one more. | [deleted] | polote wrote: | > https://www.ft.com/content/620e3d31-ba90-4cb6-ae27-6e2d0740 | d... | | 19% of britons are in favor of eternal curfews. It seems very | likely that some percentage also desire lockdowns | ceejayoz wrote: | There's a 10-20% proportion on any poll that'll pick the | insane option. | | https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- | way/2014/02/14/277058739... | | Sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of "I'll pick one | at random". | m12k wrote: | Obviously the rich elite that owns the majority of shares and | controls the world governments want to self-mutilate by | cratering the market again, so they get to "control" the | population with lockdowns. Thank god we have Facebook groups | to clue is in to all this. | yuuu wrote: | ulterior | metamet wrote: | This narrative is so silly to me. Same with those who think | that mandating mask wearing is some flex by the government to | exert control. | | It's common sense that in order to stop the spread of highly | contagious respiratory viruses, having folks stay away from | one another for a bit works... if people follow the lockdown, | which too many don't. If anything, politicians are hesitant | to invoke a lockdown due to the vocal minority's tantrums | over them. | | People don't like them, the same way that people don't _like_ | wearing masks. But most understand the value of both. And it | 's not like the local government is gaining anything from | slowing down the local economy and annoying its citizens-- | aside from trying to save lives and put less stress on the | healthcare system and its already overtaxed workers. | oceanplexian wrote: | > And it's not like the local government is gaining | anything from slowing down the local economy and annoying | its citizens | | It's a lot simpler than that. Weilding political power is | psychologically addictive, perhaps even more so than | recreational drugs. Like drugs, the user will always want | to come back for another hit, and thus politicians will use | every excuse and rationalization to continue to use | emergency powers. | chiefalchemist wrote: | Based on people I've discussed this with their explanation | is: The data doesn't support lockdowns and madates _for the | masses_. Deaths are typically a select subset of the | population. Hospitalizations much the same. Using a one | size fit all solution - when surgical solutions are more | appropriate -makes them suspect. | | Please don't shoot this messenger. I'm just providing | context that tends to be missed elsewhere. | | p.s. fwiw, there were these in the past week or so: | | https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science- | heal... | | https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211122-could-mrna- | make-... | | Both of those certain raise a reasonable eyebrow. | nicoburns wrote: | Aside from ethical concerns around shutting a subset of | the population out of society to benefit others, that | presumes that a selective approach would be effective, | and that it is feasible to segregate the vulnerable and | non-vulnerable populations. Do you have any practical | suggestions as to how that might be implemented? As a I | believe that's why it hasn't been attempted. | chiefalchemist wrote: | Again, I'm just the messenger. But the gist I get is | this: locking down select subsets (of high risk | individuals) is doable simply because locking down | everyone is doable. | | But speaking for myself, the fact that early on there | were such a ridiculous number of deaths in retirement | homes (primarily in NY, NJ, PA and CA) never smelled | right to me. We had data - openly mentioned in the media | - about Italy and the elderly and yet the same thing | happened here? It's been all down hill since then. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _locking down select subsets (of high risk individuals) | is doable_ | | We can't convince an idiot minority to spend five minutes | getting a shot. We're supposed to trust them to confine | themselves at home? | [deleted] | rajin444 wrote: | It's shutting out a tiny elderly subset for the benefit | of all vs shutting down all for the benefit of a tiny | elderly subset. I'm not saying one is better than the | other, but your ethical concern should be 2 sided. | Hermel wrote: | People like power, in particular politicians. The have a bias | towards any measure that makes them feel powerful and in | control. | toss1 wrote: | In a word: Bullsh*t. | | You fail to have the slightest understanding of how | politics works, beyone that of a 5-year old child. | | Sure, some politicians may like to 'flex', but in the real | world, that is not how they do it, even for the petty | motive to feel their power, beyond perhaps some petty | sheriff in a no-account town. There are far better ways to | 'flex' and feel one's power that do not involve making a | large portion of your voters hate you. Moreover, for | something like this to be implemented, MANY bureaucrats and | politicians need to be involved, all with different | motives, so one emotionally stunted politician could not | pull it off without a lot of help, which would not be | available absent decent reasons, at least in any democratic | system (autocracies are an entirely different story, but | AFAIK, few of us on HN currently live in one). | fhsxbdueu wrote: | please broaden your horizons and stop reading that rag | [deleted] | jmfldn wrote: | I read the article and it seems like what she is saying is more | nuanced than that. There is significant concern, not least for | potential impacts on the elderly and those with co-morbidities. | | To the point about lockdowns, nobody in govt in the UK is | looking for an excuse for another. The exact opposite is true | in fact. | cletus wrote: | No one still thinks Covid is ever going away, right? It's likely | something we'll just have to deal with like the flu. For one | thing, there are now Covid-19 reservoirs in various animal | populations. | | It's hard to say how this will evolve but there's a lot of | evolutionary pressure on viruses to become more transmissible and | less deadly. Why less deadly? Because a virus that is too deadly | will likely die. It's why the Spanish flu is now just H1N1. | | This isn't guaranteed and will no doubt join the ranks of many | other anti-vaxxer straw man arguments alongside "you said the | vaccine was forever", "you said the vaccine would stop | transmission", "people with the vaccine still can get Covid", | "people with the vaccine can still die" and so on. | | It's actually quite depressing how staggeringly selfish, wildly | irrational and willfully ignorant so many people are. I don't | mean just being ignorant. I mean taking pride in that ignorance. | Particularly in the US, it seems the anti-intellectual chickens | have come home to roost in droves. | | Seeing all of this I really hope there's no one out there who | believes for a second that the world as a whole will sacrifice | anything or even mildly inconvenience themselves when it comes to | addressing climate change. It's never going to happen. | | Like there are still people who believe the millions that have | been killed is fake news and part of some media conspiracy. | | So, I see a future with annual Covid shots just like annual flu | shots. I'm personally beyond caring if any individual chooses not | to get one. We've blunted the initial onslaught of a novel | disease appearing in a population of >7 billion with no natural | immunity (albeit at the cost of millions of lives). At this | point, it's now evolution in action. | mcbits wrote: | It can and will be eradicated, and eventually the flu along | with it (which was already a high research priority before | Covid). Just not soon. | eric__cartman wrote: | TL;DR: we don't know | EugeneOZ wrote: | I just caught myself on the funny fact, that my level of trust | for some stranger on HN is higher than the level of trust for | WHO. They worked hard to ruin their reputation. | gukov wrote: | Yeah, not after this: | https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?s=21 | ceejayoz wrote: | We're still doing this? | | "Preliminary" is a key word, as is "clear". The clear | evidence came (to the WHO, at least) about a week later. On | the same day as the tweet, they provided further | information that doesn't fit in a tweet indicating they | expected things to potentially change: | | > The timeline states that on that date, a WHO official | noted in a press briefing that there "may have been" | limited human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus | between family members and that there was "a risk of a | possible outbreak." | | The WHO doesn't have a covert intelligence arm, so they | only had what information the Chinese were willing to | provide at the time. | https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/30/brian- | fitz... | Taywee wrote: | Wasn't that the most up-to-date data at the time? Are you | claiming that they did find clear evidence and were lying | about it, or that they somehow should have had evidence to | the contrary at that time? | | Just like any burgeoning subject, you should generally keep | up with the expert recommendations. Expecting them to have | had all the answers and get everything exactly right in a | circumstance with as many unknowns as this pandemic has had | is foolish. It's silly how many people are treating medical | agencies like this as if they're complete amateurs because | some of their educated guess have ended up not being ideal, | or that they've updated their recommendations regularly | based on recent data. | | It seems like people are expecting medical organizations to | be like politicians. Updating recommendations based on new | data regularly isn't "double backing" or flip-flopping, | it's updating recommendations based on new data. It does | mean that sometimes their advice will not be correct, | especially when the data is thin, but it's literally the | best choice you have available. | | I really expect a technical community to be better about | this kind of stuff. Limited data means less reliable | conclusions. | Alex3917 wrote: | > Wasn't that the most up-to-date data at the time? | | No, China was already arresting doctors for warning about | human-to-human transmission in December. | | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/asia/Li- | Wenliang-ch... | ceejayoz wrote: | It was the most up-to-date data _the WHO had their hands | on_ at the time. | mikeyouse wrote: | The same thing happens with e.g. Fauci's mask remarks | from March of 2020. Somehow people pretend like _that_ | was the fatal communication sin of the whole pandemic and | the reason there 's little trust in the medical community | and they ignore the months and months of downplaying the | virus and just an endless stream of disinformation from | literally everyone else in the administration in service | of trying to get reelected. | rafale wrote: | Which is way better than what the media has been "speculating". | afavour wrote: | I do wish people would be more specific when saying "the | media". There are a lot of media outlets out there, some are | level headed, some are hysterical. | dahfizz wrote: | Usually when people say "the media", they mean the | mainstream liberal leaning news companies like CNN[1] or | New York Times[2]. When talking about Fox (conservative | media), people usually just say that. | | [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/28/world/coronavirus- | omicron-var... | | [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/us/governors- | omicron-covi... | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Which ones do you believe are level headed? | iamdamian wrote: | The Economist. | tonyedgecombe wrote: | The financial press is always better on this sort of | thing because they are only really interested in the | economic outcomes. | aninteger wrote: | Yes, but media outlets that go "hysterical" are the ones | that get the most views and get talked about most. Nothing | we can do about that in a free society, it's just human | nature. | chana_masala wrote: | How then did this even become a"variant of concern" if so | little is known about it? | woodruffw wrote: | The "concern" in "variant of concern" is a function of the | number of potentially significant mutations in the spike | protein. It's an indicator of unknowns (and therefore unknown | risks), not a _positive_ indicator of risk. | Trasmatta wrote: | The rate at which they noticed it spreading in SA and the | number and type of mutations. | Gibbon1 wrote: | Because it's it became the most dominant strain of covid in | SA in about two weeks. And it has a massive number of | mutations compared to other strains. The former might be | partly due to the collapse of last wave of delta. Latter | tends to scare immunologists. | willmorrison wrote: | Pretty useless statement. No interesting information. | [deleted] | rubyist5eva wrote: | I don't give a shit. I want my life back. I'll take my chances. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Would be interesting if Omicron turns out to be protected against | by vaccines over natural immunity. I'd been in favour of America | adopting the European 2G precedent, but perhaps a more | conservative stance is warranted. | [deleted] | swader999 wrote: | In general, respiratory viruses tend to get less severe over | time. With this mass vaccination approach it may not turn out | that way by some accounts I've read. | rich_sasha wrote: | In the book "spillover", notably written before Covid (so quite | prophetic read from today's perspective), the author discussed | this claim. Although it often happens, it is by no means | guaranteed (at least on satisfactory timelines), and there are | counter examples. | | One is the evolution of myxomatosis in Australia, it is a | disease affecting rabbits. The disease split into 4 strains. | Eventually the dominant one become, IIRC, one that had the | slowest progression, but also was the deadliest overall. | | Buns infected with that strain had larger chances of passing it | on (since they were alive longer), and yet they would be more | likely to die. | | I guess evolution doesn't care, and if a strain is more deadly, | yet more persistent, it will win. | jacquesm wrote: | The easier way to look at this is that from the perspective | of evolutionary pressure what happens to a host (or parents, | for that matter) once reproduction has taken place is | irrelevant. So there is no selection pressure for mortality, | that's just another outcome, _unless_ it happens too quickly | in case the virus has less chance to make it to the next | generation. | | Reductio ad absurdum: if a virus would kill on first contact | there would never be any time for it to spread, but once a | virus has spread the host is not all that interesting unless | it could be caused to continue to spread. So whether the host | lives or dies after that won't cause that particular virus to | be more or less successful. | daveguy wrote: | Citations? I think I've heard that too, but if you've read | something recently that would help me separate a study from a | rumor. | cblpan wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease#Prevention is | the canonical example: | | "However, the leaky vaccine changes this evolutionary | pressure and permits the evolution of highly virulent | strains. The vaccine's inability to prevent infection and | transmission allows the spread of highly virulent strains | among vaccinated chickens. The fitness of the more virulent | strains is increased by the vaccine." | | See: | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516275/ | | Andrew Read on the issue: | | https://theconversation.com/vaccines-could-affect-how-the- | co... | wirrbel wrote: | The argument one frequently reads/hears on this is, that a | virus has no evolutionary advantage to kill its host and if | the virus becomes fitter in terms of infecting new hosts, | they can neglect functions in their genome that lead to | deadliness. | | A respiratory virus may have an evolutionary advantage if it | doesn't hit the organism so hard that the host stays home and | isolates. Mild symptoms may increase the likelihood for | socialising for example, thus there could be evolutionary | pressure for a milder form to develop. | | I would assume that these are just general observations and | it won't allow a clear prediction where COVID19 variants are | headed. But there are theories that other coronaviruses have | been more aggressive initially until they became the milder | forms that are nowadays endemic. | | Of course we know plenty viruses that have evolved and are | still deadly, so this isn't something I would bet on. | cheese_van wrote: | Host availability is likely the greatest pressure I would | think. Then severity or its lack, given our numbers, would | be less a driver of genetic change than would random | mutations. | marwatk wrote: | Isn't Delta vs Alpha a pretty convincing counter argument? It | was more transmissible, more severe and better at avoiding | acquired immunity. | umanwizard wrote: | Source for the Delta variant being more severe? I hadn't | heard that. | danenania wrote: | Are we certain Delta was/is more severe? Since it's more | contagious, might it also be producing a lot more | mild/asymptomatic cases that don't get reported? Severity | seems like a difficult thing to measure reliably if you can't | be sure about the denominator. | PeterisP wrote: | Multiple countries have sustained mass testing of at least | certain groups of population. The argument about undetected | asymptomatic cases would be valid in early 2020 when tests | were scarce, but now there are good continuous metrics from | people who get tested even if asymptomatic. | danenania wrote: | Gotcha--I'd be interested in links to some of this | research. I wasn't aware there was conclusive evidence | that it's more severe. | PeterisP wrote: | Oh, I'm not following the news on Delta or any other | variants much, however, I just know people who are | measuring the prevalence of variants in the general | population in reasonable ways which would definitely | cover also asymptomatic people (one is mass testing - | e.g. right now 100% of local kids are getting weekly | tests in schools, and all hospital admissions get tested | even if it's e.g. a car crash, but there's also the viral | analysis in sewer system, which is a cool way to get a | total perspective on large populations), so studies about | the severity of Delta (whatever they are saying) should | not be distorted by the particular problem of | asymptomatic cases not getting reported, the researchers | now have good tools to get the "denominator" part | correct. | [deleted] | afavour wrote: | It seems kind of unlikely that the scientific world would have | overlooked this concept | m12k wrote: | In order for there to be an evolutionary pressure toward | becoming less severe, having higher severity has to give some | disadvantage - e.g. killing the host before it can spread the | disease or giving stronger symptoms so hosts can be isolated | before they can spread it. The corona virus is pretty unique in | how much it can spread before/without any symptoms showing up, | which should mean there's relatively less room for improvement | by lowering the severity. | oezi wrote: | I think it is the other way around, there is no pressure to | maintain a high severity as long as the virus can spread thus | leading to mutations that lose the severe traits. | XorNot wrote: | Viruses aren't trying to kill their hosts, they're trying | to replicate. But to replicate they kill the cells they're | in. | | COVID's severity is because it's making a tradeoff between | the time it takes the immune system to destroy it, vs the | need to get a host walking around and socializing while | breathing it out onto new hosts. The lethality is a side- | effect of its replication strategy. | lrem wrote: | Uh, can you point at an example of a pressure to kill your | host? | red_trumpet wrote: | Surely such mutations can and will happen. But will they | become dominant, if they do not provide any advantage? | Quarrelsome wrote: | sometimes the "best" team doesn't win the league. Its | plausible. | h0l0cube wrote: | Perhaps if it requires less energy to replicate and/or it | invokes a weaker immune response? | chana_masala wrote: | Asymptomatic spread is a myth - https://jamanetwork.com/journ | als/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... | greendesk wrote: | Can someone explain whether corona is unique in this | attribute of spreading versus other viruses? I would expect | most cold-related viruses or other viruses in the human | virome to exhibit this pattern. | orra wrote: | As you suspect, Coronavirus isn't unique in having an | incubation period, or in being infectious during the latter | part of the incubation period. | | Of course, there's questions of degree. | mrfusion wrote: | Dude that's 2019 science. Get with the times! | NDizzle wrote: | Yet NY declared a state of emergency already?! Crying wolf, on | repeat, for ... two more weeks, I'll guess. | 0des wrote: | When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? | | Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little | soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529". | r721 wrote: | >In a statement provided to the AP, the WHO said it skipped nu | for clarity and xi to avoid causing offense generally. | | >"'Nu' is too easily confounded with 'new,' and 'Xi' was not | used because it is a common last name," the WHO said, adding | that the agency's "best practices for naming disease suggest | avoiding 'causing offence to any cultural, social, national, | regional, professional or ethnic groups.'" | | >Those best practices were outlined in a May 2015 document | issued by the agency. The organization said at the time that it | wanted to "minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, | economies and people" when naming infectious diseases. | | https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-heal... | MadeThisToReply wrote: | They skipped the Greek letter "Xi"; no prizes for guessing why. | glandium wrote: | When people realized that "Nu variant" sounded like "New | variant" | justincormack wrote: | And Xi sounds like the Chinese leader. | FPGAhacker wrote: | The Greek letter pronounced more like Kai. But, yes, the | anglicized written form of the Greek letter looks like the | anglicized written form of the Chinese leader's name. And I | agree, I'm sure it was skipped in the interest of not being | antagonistic. | jason0597 wrote: | It's not really pronounced Kai, it's Xi. | | Ksuno, Ksustra, Oxugono, anoixe, xenos, xero, lexe | | It's pronounced xi, exactly. "x". | | Take it from a Greek ;) | mbg721 wrote: | More "looks like", in transliteration; John Q. Budweiser | has no reason to try to pronounce it, and why should he? | This was purely a butt-smooching move from the Western | media. | cole-k wrote: | The answers address your question here: | https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-w... | [deleted] | enlyth wrote: | This answer does not address the why, only the 'did it | happen'. | | Like other commenters have said, Nu was skipped because it | sounded too similar to "New", and Xi was skipped because of | Xi Jinping. | | It's not a conspiracy, it's to avoid political controversy, | before someone starts a flamewar on here. | [deleted] | calltrak wrote: | Great video about Omicron up on https://hugotalks.com | minimaxir wrote: | > Fauci told Biden it'll take ~2 weeks to get "more definitive | information on the transmissibility, severity, and other | characteristics" of Omicron, per WH. | | > "He continues to believe that existing vaccines are likely to | provide a degree of protection against severe cases of COVID." | | https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/146508649802653696... | | https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... | coolso wrote: | Fauci told 60 Minutes on March 8th, 2020: | | > "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When | you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make | people feel a little bit better and it might even block a | droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that | people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended | consequences -- people keep fiddling with the mask and they | keep touching their face." | | https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-fauci-outdated-... | | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask... | ceejayoz wrote: | Albert Einstein: | | > Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice | tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory | produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the | secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He | does not play dice. | | Scientists get things wrong. I'm more concerned about someone | who _won 't_ change their position when better information | becomes available. | coolso wrote: | Did better information become available, or was he | misleading the public to prevent people buying too many | masks making it harder for medical staff to acquire them? | | Either way the quote is important to inform people who may | not be aware, that a Fauci quote is not necessarily the end | all be all factual information the media would have you | believe it is. | wrl wrote: | Yeah, and humanity used to believe in miasma theory too. | Fauci being wrong and then correcting himself later is a good | thing, actually. | john_moscow wrote: | Well, unfortunately, criticizing anything vaccine-related has | become an unholy thought crime, but there's an interesting prior | example how a leaky vaccine (i.e. the one that don't stop you | from infecting others) helped make the virus more deadly. | | You can search for Marek's disase - a virus affecting chickens. | Here's a scary paragraph from the Wiki [0]: | | >Because vaccination does not prevent infection with the virus, | Marek's is still transmissible from vaccinated flocks to other | birds, including the wild bird population. The first Marek's | disease vaccine was introduced in 1970. The disease would cause | mild paralysis, with the only identifiable lesions being in | neural tissue. Mortality of chickens infected with Marek's | disease was quite low. Current strains of Marek virus, decades | after the first vaccine was introduced, cause lymphoma formation | throughout the chicken's body and mortality rates have reached | 100% in unvaccinated chickens. | | The current pandemic is a completely unprecedented thing, but | global vaccination does put an evolutionary pressure on the virus | to escape the vaccine. So it's a trade-off between the current | deaths and unknown deaths in the future. Sadly, we live in such | polarizing times, that trade-offs and moderation have become a | luxury we can no longer afford. | | Some more articles: [1], [2] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease | | [1] https://www.healthline.com/health-news/leaky-vaccines-can- | pr... | | [2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken- | vaccine-m... | baby wrote: | Tl;dr: we don't know much currently. It is very frustrating that | our tools and techniques are so slow at analyzing, detecting, | understanding airborne diseases. | 0-sodium wrote: | Chose carefully - fast or accurate. | mr_sturd wrote: | I think their best would be educated guesses without actually | seeing how it behaves in the wild. Though with them simply | saying it's a VoC with a high number of mutations has led the | media to catastrophise in their reporting. | coolso wrote: | Is there another, less biased source we can use rather than the | WHO, which has been confirmed and well documented to be | influenced heavily by the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party, | especially with matters related to COVID? | nectarinebanana wrote: | Bracing for the worst :very scared: | bengale wrote: | I think this might be the most level headed information I've seen | so far: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/go-get- | your-v... | nectarinebanana wrote: | Recommending vaccination for a "variant" we know nothing about | - isn't this plain misinformation? | adolph wrote: | The WHO statement seems to have a more sanguine viewpoint than | the Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG- | VE) which defines "Variant of Concern" as associated with one of | the below: | | _Increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 | epidemiology; OR_ | | _Increase in virulence or change in clinical disease | presentation; OR_ | | _Decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures | or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics._ | | https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-varian... | | _This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are | concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of | reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The | number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in | almost all provinces in South Africa. Current SARS-CoV-2 PCR | diagnostics continue to detect this variant. Several labs have | indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three | target genes is not detected (called S gene dropout or S gene | target failure) and this test can therefore be used as marker for | this variant, pending sequencing confirmation. Using this | approach, this variant has been detected at faster rates than | previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may | have a growth advantage._ | | https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-o... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-28 23:00 UTC)