Omicron variant concerns
drummerboy said:
I have a vaccine question.
Vaccines like those for polio or measles work by mitigating transmission so that once you vaccinate enough people, the virus essentially goes extinct because there are no new hosts to go to. (I'm simplifying, and re-reading this, it might not be quite correct, but I think it's close enough.)
Is it unusual to have vaccines like the ones for COVID that don't seem to affect transmission rates? And is there hope that new vaccines will be developed that do affect transmission?
If not, and given that COVID transmission so far is mostly unaffected, are we doomed to COVID having free reign over us to transmit itself and mutate forever?
Or am I just off-base regarding the vaccines affect on COVID transmission?
I don't believe there will ever be a vaccine that gives us herd immunity to covid 19. It mutates too often, and there are animal reservoirs. It will be more like the flu. The good news is that it is likely to evolve into less lethal strains, It seems as though that is already starting to happen.
PeterWick said:
Thankfully, the daily deaths graph hasn't followed that spike.
And that, right there, is the difference between unvaccinated and vaccinated.
terp said:
That and the omicron strain is less deadly. This showed itself in south Africa which has a vaccination rate under 30%
You can see the pattern in the surges before omicron too. But I certainly hope that the early data suggesting omicron is less deadly holds true, and that this is also true for subsequent variants.
Another factor is that we have better treatments as well. Monoclonal antibodies in particular are quite effective.
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
We have to proceed with caution in taking comfort from the South African experience but on the other hand, their conlusions about the relative mildness of Omicron cases comes from a comparison with their Delta cases, i.e. the variables are basically the same except for the variant involved. That's what the SA Dr. who found Omicron, and who has argued that the UK is overreacting, has been saying. Her experience with her patients in her South African hospital shows a distinct difference in severity between pre-Omicron and Omicron cases.
That said, the sheer numbers of positive tests and rapid rise of Omicron to dominant status in the UK is astounding.
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
Redfruit said:
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
Not clear. Are you concerned that there is not enough life insurance on the parent or not enough on the kids?
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
Redfruit said:
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
Not clear. Are you concerned that there is not enough life insurance on the parent or not enough on the kids?
it’s quite clear what I wrote. Read it again. Adults who are refusing vaccination are risking it all for selfish/misinformed/political reasons. Hope they have plenty of life insurance because omicron is coming. Screw them, However children, This is my concern, Especially the age groups still not eligible for vaccination.
Redfruit said:
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
terp said:
Redfruit said:
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
unfortunately, with new variants we can’t assume this will always be the case.
terp said:
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
you don't do math too well, do you.
You can't make the comparison you're trying to unless the flu and COVID have the same transmission rates.
They don't. Covid is vastly more virulent.
So, you're wrong yet again.
Redfruit said:
terp said:
Redfruit said:
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
unfortunately, with new variants we can’t assume this will always be the case.
So, we always assume the worst? Just so you are aware, There are costs to the relentless fear mongering.
drummerboy said:
terp said:
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
you don't do math too well, do you.
You can't make the comparison you're trying to unless the flu and COVID have the same transmission rates.
They don't. Covid is vastly more virulent.
So, you're wrong yet again.
Its been 2 years and there are less than 800 deaths of children under the age of 18. Compare that to 1 year where we have a decent flu season. And most of these kids were already sick. The fact is that for healthy children the risk from covid is remote.
terp said:
drummerboy said:
terp said:
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
you don't do math too well, do you.
You can't make the comparison you're trying to unless the flu and COVID have the same transmission rates.
They don't. Covid is vastly more virulent.
So, you're wrong yet again.
Its been 2 years and there are less than 800 deaths of children under the age of 18. Compare that to 1 year where we have a decent flu season. And most of these kids were already sick. The fact is that for healthy children the risk from covid is remote.
goalposts moved. good job.
If the numbers of childhood deaths are roughly equal between COVID and flu, would that change your contention?
drummerboy said:
terp said:
drummerboy said:
terp said:
This virus is orders of magnitude less risky to children than influenza.
you don't do math too well, do you.
You can't make the comparison you're trying to unless the flu and COVID have the same transmission rates.
They don't. Covid is vastly more virulent.
So, you're wrong yet again.
Its been 2 years and there are less than 800 deaths of children under the age of 18. Compare that to 1 year where we have a decent flu season. And most of these kids were already sick. The fact is that for healthy children the risk from covid is remote.
goalposts moved. good job.
If the numbers of childhood deaths are roughly equal between COVID and flu, would that change your contention?
How did I move the goal posts?
Redfruit said:
unfortunately, with new variants we can’t assume this will always be the case.
Another issue for children of anti-vaxxers and another reason to check life insurance is that a lot of orphans are being made. Both parents dead of COVID ... a story I have seen many times in the news throughout the pandemic. It is heartbreaking and at this point almost entirely preventable.
terp said:
Its been 2 years and there are less than 800 deaths of children under the age of 18. Compare that to 1 year where we have a decent flu season.
Pediatric deaths related to flu in the 2018-19 season: 144
In the 2019-20 season: 199
https://gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/PedFluDeath.html
Annual range since 2003-04: 37 to 282
https://www.verywellhealth.com/deaths-from-flu-2633829 (chart source: CDC)
terp said:
So, we always assume the worst? Just so you are aware, There are costs to the relentless fear mongering.
Delaying seeking medical care is an unfortunate thing but so is the overloading of hospital capacity with needless COVID cases that also burn out the ranks of our professional medical staff.
Those fears? There are irrational fears and then there's is seeing those thousands of COVID deaths and even more survivors with sustained illness.
sbenois said:
PeterWick said:
This is New Jersey's graph of daily new cases, taken December 17th. Thankfully, the daily deaths graph hasn't followed that spike. That daily new case graph is close to matching the highest rate New Jersey has had in this whole pandemic.
In pure terms yes but the comparison is flawed because there is far greater availability of tests now. Could very well be possible that the numbers would have been much higher 18 months ago had ample tests been around.
Good point. Now that we do have better testing capabilities I hope it can be used to do a better job of understanding the patterns of the delta, omicron, and future variants. Not just the unvaccinated will benefit. This will help track vaccine efficacy in the face of new variants and determine whether new vaccine formulations will be necessary against a moving target.
I wanted to get this noticed again amidst this new rush of activity on a discussion I had hoped wouldn't be necessary for much longer.
Redfruit said:
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
basically, for those adults never infected or vaccinated, you may want to check your life insurance policies. While there’s no excuse for not being vaccinated and now working to get boosted, my concern are the little ones not eligible to be vaxed yet. This is worrisome but hopefully this variant like the other variants remains mild for kids.
I'm bumping this up again, too. We may be deceived by the reports of omicron being less harmful to those it infects. Due to a few different factors, omicron is finding some populations that are more susceptible than others to its harm as it spreads around the world. Its ability to spread in different populations might be similar but not the severity of the illness it causes.
This makes it all the more important to come up with medicines like Paxlovid. The way it attacks the viral protease is much less susceptible to mutations and so far the variants have still needed that enzymatic activity regardless of their outward-facing antigens.
From the article:
Taken all together, the data suggest that at minimum, 20% of Americans still have had neither a vaccine, nor a prior infection. That's about 66 million people who have immune systems that are completely "naive," as scientists term it, when it comes to exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
Right now, the Centers for Disease Control estimates cases of omicron are doubling every two or three days in the U.S., and predict that in a few weeks, it could be the dominant variant across the country.
The 66 million Americans people who are naive to SARS-CoV-2 are the people for whom the omicron variant poses the greatest risk. These are the people who are most likely to end up in the hospital during an omicron surge. These are the people for whom a "less severe" variant in South Africa, may actually be a "severe" variant in the U.S.
I don't want to discourage vaccinations but Omicron may be moving too fast to really benefit the completely unvaccinated, even if they all join the party now, if the powers that be hold to the current schedule for the second (and third) shots. It may peak by the end of January.
BTW, they have yet to cancel the Times Square New Year Eve celebration. I can't imagine they will go forward with it unless Omicron somehow fizzles. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of people shoulder to shoulder for hours drinking and whatnot?
At what point does the RNC recognize that the Dems are going to win the Southern states?
PeterWick said:
terp said:
So, we always assume the worst? Just so you are aware, There are costs to the relentless fear mongering.
Delaying seeking medical care is an unfortunate thing but so is the overloading of hospital capacity with needless COVID cases that also burn out the ranks of our professional medical staff.
Those fears? There are irrational fears and then there's is seeing those thousands of COVID deaths and even more survivors with sustained illness.
those data for NJ deaths were for 2020. It was hardly irrational last year for people (especially if they had a risk factor) to put off medical care when exposure to the virus might have killed them even quicker. If someone had a heart condition or was elderly, it wasn't fear mongering to suggest they avoid places where they might contract COVID.
sbenois said:
At what point does the RNC recognize that the Dems are going to win the Southern states?
I would say after the majority of the unvaccinated Southern Repub voters die or develop long covid from Omicron or its predecessors.
I agree with you, ml1. It wasn't irrational to fear going to medical facilities last year. And it is still frightening based on what we've witnessed this year with the delta and omicron variants. Disparaging comments like terp's are not helpful but yes, there are going to be some unfortunate wrinkles in the stats for longer-term preventable illnesses.
NYS and NJS have done well to cut the deaths back but not every state has had similar results.
About 20,000 of the 59,000+ NYS COVID deaths occurred in 2021 with 2 weeks to go.
About 9,5000 of the 28.700+ New Jersey COVID deaths came in 2021 with 2 weeks to go.
sbenois said:
This is a must read. Great article.
Enlightening. There goes my assumption its likely a weak virus and that we will get over it.
We have another risk, more severe than in other countries. The high risk of so many here having obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The Coronavirus Attacks Fat Tissue
A man whose ideal weight is 170 pounds but who weighs 250 pounds is carrying a substantial amount of fat in which the virus may “hang out,” replicate and trigger a destructive immune system response, said Dr. David Kass, a professor of cardiology at Johns Hopkins.
“If you really are very obese, fat is the biggest single organ in your body,” Dr. Kass said.
The coronavirus “can infect that tissue and actually reside there,” he said. “Whether it hurts it, kills it or at best, it’s a place to amplify itself — it doesn’t matter. It becomes kind of a reservoir.”
As the inflammatory response snowballs, cytokines trigger even more inflammation and the release of additional cytokines. “It’s like a perfect storm,” he said.
Dr. Blish and her colleagues speculated that infected body fat may even contribute to “long Covid,” a condition describing troublesome symptoms like fatigue that persist for weeks or months after recovery from an acute episode.
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In pure terms yes but the comparison is flawed because there is far greater availability of tests now. Could very well be possible that the numbers would have been much higher 18 months ago had ample tests been around.