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Update on Omicron

• Lhiw 5y ago
  Linking to or referring to Fauci should be considered disinformation or at least misinformation. He's a known liar with a lot to lose and cannot be trusted.
• bpmayer 5y ago
  Translation: "Give us more power"
  • ceejayoz 5y ago
    What power does the WHO currently have?
    • ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
      For some reason they are still treated like a trust-worthy authority despite continually getting things wrong. They are rainmakers -- if the results don't match their promises they just blame the people for angering the gods and demand more sacrifices.
  • pif 5y ago
    MAGA hat wearer, I suppose.
    • jamil7 5y ago
      More likely a tinfoil hat wearer.
      • meepmorp 5y ago
        Really, people make such a production out of it. You can use the tinfoil to line an existing hat.
• eric__cartman 5y ago
  TL;DR: we don't know
  • rafale 5y ago
    Which is way better than what the media has been "speculating".
    • afavour 5y ago
      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.
      • Mountain_Skies 5y ago
        Which ones do you believe are level headed?
        • iamdamian 5y ago
          The Economist.
          • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
            The financial press is always better on this sort of thing because they are only really interested in the economic outcomes.
            • unmole 5y ago
              Not really, the FT was the first one to go hysterical.
      • aninteger 5y ago
        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.
• chasil 5y ago
  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-disease/south-african-doctor-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
  • r721 5y ago
    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 5y ago
    Why do you say "excuse for another lockdown"? Are you implying that someone in government has alterior motives to desire a lockdown?
    • yuuu 5y ago
      ulterior
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • polote 5y ago
      > https://www.ft.com/content/620e3d31-ba90-4cb6-ae27-6e2d0740dac4 https://www.ft.com/content/620e3d31-ba90-4cb6-ae27-6e2d0740d... 19% of britons are in favor of eternal curfews. It seems very likely that some percentage also desire lockdowns
      • ceejayoz 5y ago
        There's a 10-20% proportion on any poll that'll pick the insane option. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739... Sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of "I'll pick one at random".
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• swader999 5y ago
  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.
  • afavour 5y ago
    It seems kind of unlikely that the scientific world would have overlooked this concept
  • daveguy 5y ago
    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.
    • wirrbel 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
    • cblpan 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek%27s_disease#Prevention 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/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516275/ Andrew Read on the issue: https://theconversation.com/vaccines-could-affect-how-the-coronavirus-evolves-but-thats-no-reason-to-skip-your-shot-165960 https://theconversation.com/vaccines-could-affect-how-the-co...
• NDizzle 5y ago
  Yet NY declared a state of emergency already?! Crying wolf, on repeat, for … two more weeks, I’ll guess.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• nectarinebanana 5y ago
  Bracing for the worst :very scared:
• bengale 5y ago
  I think this might be the most level headed information I’ve seen so far: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/go-get-your-vaccine-especially-with https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/go-get-your-v...
  • nectarinebanana 5y ago
    [dead]
  • exegete 5y ago
    I read through it and the assessment makes sense (vaccine effectiveness is not binary in the face of spike protein mutations). But I think it also fails to mention the promising anti-COVID pills that are going to be approved soon, and those from my understanding wouldn’t be as affected by spike protein mutations since they use a different mechanism for treatment. [0] 0. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-antiviral-drugs-merck-pfizer-pills-work-rcna5317 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-antiviral-d...
• duxup 5y ago
  I would love for a COVID variation for with low severity illness to become dominant ... forever?
  • adolph 5y ago
    I expect this to be the case since decreased severity is associated with higher virus reproduction. The main question becomes second order effects.
    • loceng 5y ago
      Yup, tradeoffs forced to select towards survival.
      • janmo 5y ago
        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.
      • jazzyjackson 5y ago
        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 :)
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • mcbits 5y ago
          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.
      • 5y ago
• belter 5y ago
  South Africa's COVID-19 adviser, Prof Barry Schoub told Sky News that so far, most Omicron cases, were mild. https://youtu.be/3RSRtuRm92o 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-disease/south-african-doctor-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/ 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."
  • ceejayoz 5y ago
    https://www.yahoo.com/now/u-k-buying-time-mideast-111736790.html 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 5y ago
      Indeed. Prof Barry Schoub, mentions two times in the interview that its very early days.
      • sharkweek 5y ago
        It’s interesting compared to some of the initial COVID cases recorded in the US last year, specifically in a nursing home up here in the Seattle area where its death/hospitalization rate were quite high (iirc it was around 1 in 4 of that initial outbreak in the home ended up dying or something quite terrifying). I’m worried that the opposite might be true here, young and healthy catching it first so death rate is lower (great!) but lulls everyone into a false sense of security that it won’t be another delta wave especially among elderly and sick but then it slowly creeps into one because of the initial coverage. Tough balancing act for researchers, trying to prevent both panic and complacency.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  I don't give a shit. I want my life back. I'll take my chances.
• 0des 5y ago
  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".
  • cole-k 5y ago
    The answers address your question here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-who-name-the-latest-covid-19-variant-omicron-skipping-the-names-xi-and https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-w...
    • enlyth 5y ago
      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.
      • dnautics 5y ago
        it's not a conspiracy, but it is lamesauce that the WHO said "it's a common surname" when Mu is a more common surname than Xi. They should have just said "it's the surname of a world leader" for honesty and transparency. Instead, they just discredited themselves.
        • wallacoloo 5y ago
          seriously. i get that it’s different organizations doing the naming here, but if the average person actually cared about name conflicts, we wouldn’t still be naming hurricanes after common first names. it’s 100% because of a single, notable person being impacted. maybe more conscientious naming IS a thing we should be doing, but we should make that change because of an organic desire for it — not because of a single prominent figure being offended.
          • deleted 5y ago
• calltrak 5y ago
  Great video about Omicron up on https://hugotalks.com https://hugotalks.com
• john_moscow 5y ago
  [flagged]
• baby 5y ago
  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.
  • mr_sturd 5y ago
    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.
  • 0-sodium 5y ago
    Chose carefully - fast or accurate.
• coolso 5y ago
  [flagged]
• adolph 5y ago
  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-variants/ 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-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-o...
• cletus 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    • mlac 5y ago
      With the heat death of the universe, sure.
    • alxhghs 5y ago
      Honest question, how could it ever be eradicated when people actively aren’t willing to cooperate?
• JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  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.
• minimaxir 5y ago
  > 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/1465086498026536967 https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/146508649802653696... https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/28/readout-of-president-bidens-meeting-with-covid-19-response-team-on-the-omicron-variant/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
  • coolso 5y ago
    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-video-masks-idUSKBN26T2TR https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-fauci-outdated-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask-60-minutes-2020-03-08/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask...
    • ceejayoz 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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.
• aetherspawn 5y ago
  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.
  • mgamache 5y ago
    Sorry, a vaccine that still allows infection at a significant rate will continue to foster evolution. It may slow the process, but not change the result. There’s just no way the current vaccines stop this.
  • trashcan_ 5y ago
    There aren’t enough administered vaccines. Many areas have vaccine doses but lack infrastructure to deliver them or just simply have ineffective government.
  • mattrighetti 5y ago
    The fact that this has been discovered in Africa doesn’t mean that it originated there in the first place. > Several scientists said they suspected that the variant had been spreading undetected in countries with lackluster sequencing efforts before it surfaced in Botswana and South Africa, giving it more time to scatter globally. Nevertheless, European nations did not find the variant until after South Africa alerted them to it, demonstrating the gaps in their own surveillance efforts. [0] More on this can also be found here [1]. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/27/world/africa/coronavirus-omicron-africa.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/27/world/africa/coronavirus-... [1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graemecodrington_interesting-update-from-the-botswana-government-activity-6870630515469238272-Kw8q https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graemecodrington_interesting-...
    • pedalpete 5y ago
• willmorrison 5y ago
  Pretty useless statement. No interesting information.
  • thomascgalvin 5y ago
    In science, "we don't know yet" is on of the most useful statements you can make. It does two things of note: 1. Tells anyone that's paying attention that any speculation is just that, speculation, and 2. Tells people that while we don't have answers yet, those answers are being looked for.
• grimdata 5y ago
  The media blows these variants out of proportion. I've been doing research in computational epidemiology now for quite some time. Get concerned when we say there is a new strain. As for now, this new variant will be used for political purposes (look at us, we're doing something about it). This variant has been in the US for about two months, and it is easy to spot in the data in places like Colorado. Don't blame me, the messenger, blame the politicians on both sides who have gotten this virus wrong. Vaccination is the only tool we have. There is not a single medication we have that does better than an incremental improvement in patients (and all of those are up for debate). And before anyone starts with 3rd world countries not having the vaccine, many of those 3rd world countries have sold their supplies to other nations, or have no way to distribute the vaccine. No one is discussing this.
  • FartyMcFarter 5y ago
    > This variant has been in the US for about two months, and it is easy to spot in the data in places like Colorado. What is your source for this? Is there anywhere we can read about it? edit: The New York Times seems to disagree: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/28/world/covid-omicron-variant-news https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/28/world/covid-omicron-... > Omicron has not yet surfaced in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • layoric 5y ago
    Are there any sources you know of regarding the related African countries selling their allocations?
    • grimdata 5y ago
      I recommend pulling a FOIA from ita.gov on vaccine redirection. Just ask for any documents related to redirection of aid to South African countries.
  • 5y ago
• synergy20 5y ago
  Please rename it back to Covid Nu, so we can use Covid Xi for next round, who made this for the whole world to suffer.
  • Thorentis 5y ago
    The skipping of that letter of the Greek alphabet, after the WHO's blunder around the questions of Taiwan, was certainly not without interest.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Summary: PCR tests still work, certain therapies still work, and interestingly, they claim to already know that "Current vaccines remain effective against severe disease and death." while claiming to know basically nothing else (not even whether it is more transmissible).
  • pseudoramble 5y ago
    I think the wording is kinda weird, and maybe it was a bit of encouraging people to still get vaccines? Since it's effective against Delta and other variants, it's still pretty important to get them. But it sounded unclear what impact would be at this point. The whole snippet here: > WHO is working with technical partners to understand the potential impact of this variant on our existing countermeasures, including vaccines. Vaccines remain critical to reducing severe disease and death, including against the dominant circulating virus, Delta. Current vaccines remain effective against severe disease and death.
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      > maybe it was a bit of encouraging people to still get vaccines This is exactly what it feels like - and what we need is clear, honest statements of facts, not attempts to mislead for some higher goals. Given the whole context (this is a post about Omicron) and the fact that they aren't qualifying some of the other statements either ("Corticosteroids and IL6 Receptor Blockers will still be effective for managing patients with severe COVID-19"), I am going to treat this statement as a claim about Omicron. I don't really care much whether they are explicitly trying to make a statement about Omicron, intentionally writing it in an ambiguous way to make people think it's about Omicron while being able to claim that that's not what they meant, or whether they're incompetent to communicate clearly - either way, if the statement turns out to not be supported, it's a further signal that everything coming from the WHO cannot be trusted.
  • ExtremisAndy 5y ago
    I also thought the line about current vaccine protection against severe disease/death sounded a little more confident than the evidence seems to justify. I’m no expert in this field and would never pretend to be. But I would like to know what they base that confidence on when there’s so little data at this point.
• dadjoker 5y ago
  Dr Angelique Coetzee, chairwoman of the South African Medical Association: “It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
  • colordrops 5y ago
    If it turns out that it is indeed extremely mild, does not cause deaths, and an infection with it confers immunity to covid in general, shouldn't it be allowed to run like wildfire?
    • 1270018080 5y ago
      I don't think we can choose which variant infects people
      • karlicoss 5y ago
        in addition it can probably mutate back up in terms of severity? although I believe geneticists have some framework to estimate/predict likelihood of that
    • m4rtink 5y ago
      Even if it really was like that, there are still good reasons for not allowing that - if there is still a chance it can kill people, there would still be considerable bodycount if it really is more transmissible and many people get infected at once (overloaded hospitals). Mild symphtoms also still don't say anything about possible long term damage that might only become aparent later. And lastly, infecting so many new hosts opens the possibility of creating a more deadly variants, just by pure chance, due to so much virus replication going on in the hosts.
      • colordrops 5y ago
• cryptodan 5y ago
  Rearrange the letters and you get moronic.
  • mlvljr 5y ago
    Username checks out nicely
• bob332 5y ago
  Lol does anyone but a chump believe anything the WHO says?
• sydthrowaway 5y ago
  A big nothingburger
  • tamaharbor 5y ago
    But be very afraid.
• heywherelogingo 5y ago
  "very mild symptoms" - can we move on now?
  • brokensegue 5y ago
    > Severity of disease: It is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants, including Delta. Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected We don't know for sure yet one way or another.
• heywherelogingo 5y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-patients-with-omicron-variant-have-very-mild-symptoms-2021-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-pa...
• yufeng66 5y ago
  The omicron variant could be a blessing in disguise if the early stories on how it is less deadly checks out. That means people refuse to get the vaccine shot will be infected with the omicron variant with relatively low consequence and get immunity that way. Btw this is how it suppose to work. The virus has no incentive to kill its host. The variant that is fast spreading and less deadly eventually wins out.
  • wallacoloo 5y ago
    this makes me think that there’s got to be at least some people in power who believe that engineering and releasing a more transmissible but less deadly variant is a prudent way to respond to this pandemic. i wonder how many people are working on this right now.
    • bhawks 5y ago
      Yes nothing could possibly go wrong with this strategy. This is an example of one of the reasons why there is growing distrust of experts.
      • cglace 5y ago
        A hypothetical situation is why people don’t trust experts?
        • aradox66 5y ago
          This is fairly accurate for how a lot of vaccine resistance works.
        • wallacoloo 5y ago
          a hypothetical occurrence to which there are adjacent real-world occurences. gain-of-function research being perhaps the most damning. if i was doing gain of function experiments, i would at least consider engineering a variant that squeezes out the more deadly ones. it's not really that dissimilar a line of thinking to the people who want to use CRISPR to release genetically modified mosquitos with dominant traits that lead to eradication of the species as their new genes take over. > A hypothetical situation is why people don’t trust experts? it's the real-world occurrences which lead a person's theory of mind to believe that similar experts might feasibly pursue certain hypothetical occurrences. without the hypotheticals, it's mostly individuals who lose their credibility after doing specific things in the real world. but the hypotheticals allow that loss of credibility to spread from individual bad actors to whole groups.
• reglkjlkjaegr 5y ago
  Fuck every piece of shit that posts fascist covidian propaganda to hackernews. You all need to be arrested. I hope you all die from your 'vax' that isn't a vax and doesn't do shit. Fucking cult!
• reglkjlkjaegr 5y ago
  So great to know that we have tests that can test the difference between Delta and Omicron.... oh wait we don't - they are literally just making all of this shit up. FUCK THE COVID CULT!
• reglkjlkjaegr 5y ago
  COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT. COVID IS A CULT.
• malloryerik 5y ago
  Would it be good if Omicron were more transmissible but less harmful? Theoretically, could a mutation evolve that was highly transmissible but harmless? What would happen?
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    > Would it be good if Omicron were more transmissible but less harmful? Yes, provided that immunity gained by infection with Omicron also provided immunity for the other variants.
• marchingtomars 5y ago
  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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
  • digislave 5y ago
    It's obviously true that some people try to use Covid to further their political agenda, as many people (including high profile politicians) openly say so. Nevertheless it seems more likely to me that memes are kind of self organizing, no coordinated effort is necessary. Media of course is simply interested in creating a stir and pushing the most sticky memes (usually fear, hate, chaos...).
• marchingtomars 5y ago
  Dr Youngblood MD, speaks at San Diego, County Board of Supervisors meeting, November 3, 2021. Discusses the dangers of the vaccine and the FDA coverup of known medical issues prior to its approval. This is a sham, folks. Down with Medical Fascism! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD0nwFHJPuw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD0nwFHJPuw
• antifaux 5y ago
  Down with Medical Fascism! Dr Youngblood MD, speaks at San Diego, County Board of Supervisors meeting, November 3, 2021. Discusses the dangers of the vaccine and the FDA coverup of known medical issues prior to its approval. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD0nwFHJPuw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD0nwFHJPuw
• antifaux 5y ago
  "S.African doctor says patients with Omicron variant have "very mild" symptoms" https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-patients-with-omicron-variant-have-very-mild-symptoms-2021-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-pa... Yeah, I'm getting sick of the communist propaganda here on HackerNews.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway2036 5y ago
  Why doesnt anyone take the advice of Robert Malone seriously? Or his colleagues? If COVID were a computer virus, and the man behind it, who happens to specialize in antivirus software, was suddenly discredited very recently after infection of computers worldwide, would his opinion be no longer worthy because he failed to go along with the media/mainstream agenda? A mainstream media who's investors might be the same as other competing antivirus companies? If he had spent his entire career as a computer scientist/software developer, came up with his own language, would we listen to the 'fact checking' of news outlets when they disregard his experience, when they tell us their unassailable facts about the virus? Not only himself, but other lifetime software developers of antivirus software, who also risk their careers/tenure over their opinions on a computer virus, which the mainstream media seems to know more about than they do? Is this the first time a government (or any government not just the US) has purposely had an ulterior motive - not due to regard for their citizens, but perhaps due to conflicts of interests of their boards of directors. If the government were a large company, would we be so trusting?
• Stranger43 5y ago
  At what point does the new covid variants stop being SARS-CoV-2 and morph into something else? To me it seems intellectually lazy to keep pretending we are still dealing with the same SARS-CoV-2 virus that emerged in 2019 given that covid is an old and relatively common family of vira that's traditionally been classified alongside rhinovirus as "The Common Cold"?
• OneTimePetes 5y ago
  Do not buy time by shutting down travel and use failed watch/wait approach again - also WHO.
  • incrudible 5y ago
    Travel bans have never worked either. The variant almost certainly already reached community transmission in Northern Africa, they're just not reporting it. Travel bans reward this behavior. Furthermore, airports are good places to track and study infections. Assume that this variant will spread worldwide. We've already been through this with the wild type, with Beta and with Delta/Gamma.
  • shlant 5y ago
    from what I understand, based on current evidence, travel restrictions will not do much at this point: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/11/28/1059619823/omicron-travel-bans-covid https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/1...
    • OneTimePetes 5y ago
      Travel restrictions bought Taiwan and South Korea lots of time in the beginning. Other countries who usually follow scientific guidance have implemented them (israel). There seem to be no real papers linked to the base of this guidance, except that they feel like a attack on the freedom of movement for a globalist elite and the tourism industry. I rather prefer to be healthy and safe, then to put a blind eye to some elite favoured cultural blind spot. >Reply: Families are even less a reason to visit internationally in a global pandemic. Why should it be a right to bring a potentially deadly disease to your loved ones? Others cant visit there dying family in a hospital, why should one be granted exemption to visit the living?
      • mathverse 5y ago
        People dont travel just for leisure. Millions of people have families scattered all around the world.
• throw8932894 5y ago
  Or maybe SARS‑CoV‑2 just become common flu. There will be herd immunity and risk will become low.
  • impendingchange 5y ago
    Coronavirus in the '80s was defined as the common cold. Edit: Prove me wrong.
    • bigbillheck 5y ago
      No it wasn't? The known coronaviruses in the 1980s were four of the ones that cause the cold, but virology hasn't stood still since.
      • impendingchange 5y ago
        The definition of the Coronavirus in the AMA medical Encyclopedia textbook. https://www.bitchute.com/video/UvuXzdVwj3ed/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/UvuXzdVwj3ed/ Proved right again.
        • darrenf 5y ago
          https://fullfact.org/online/coronavirus-textbook-1989-common-cold/ https://fullfact.org/online/coronavirus-textbook-1989-common...
        • bigbillheck 5y ago
          I guess HPIV, Hendra virus, and Nipah virus don't exist because they're not listed under paramyxovirus. There's a bunch of other stuff that's wrong (for starters, the locations of rubella, dengue, yellow fever) or missing (papillomavirus can cause cancer and not just warts).
    • shlant 5y ago
      prove you wrong about what? I don't even know what point you are trying to make
• AwaAwa 5y ago
  Didn't a doctor state that omicron had mild symptoms? Seems like the easiest solution to building global immunity. But that would definitely get in the way of The Authority.
• rayxc 5y ago
  [flagged]
  • MontyCarloHall 5y ago
    Weird they don’t mention that South Africa had so much of a vaccine surplus they asked other countries to stop sending vaccine [0]. Their low vaccination rate is due to hesitancy amongst the population, not access to doses. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-24/s-africa-wants-j-j-pfizer-vaccine-delivery-delay-news24-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-24/s-africa-...
  • shlant 5y ago
    not sure why you are bringing up Portugal as if it's some sort of gotcha. It's doing very well in terms of deaths, similar to the UK, Canada etc. who also have high vaccination rates.
    • astwq 5y ago
      All countries or states that had initial comparatively high fatalities like Sweden, Italy, Portugal, New York, Florida are doing relatively well now regardless of vaccination status. A possible cause is that there are fewer vulnerable people left. Even if the vaccine does help against severe cases, it does not stop the spread, so being vaccinated should be an individual choice and not forced like in Austria. That is why a closer look at highly vaccinated countries is in order, everything else is unscientific.
  • 7952 5y ago
    Death rates look pretty low in Portugal. Not sure if that counts as "saving humanity", but it does seem to be saving lives.
  • dpark 5y ago
    I’m not sure what your point is. That article literally says Portugal is not experiencing as large a surge as other countries (probably due to their high rate of vaccination) and that the lockdown proposed is not necessary.
• noarchy 5y ago
  This variant is already being found on nearly every continent as I type this. We still don’t seem to know if this variant is more or less contagious or more or less deadly. It’s too late to stop it’s spread. So then what? Just keep pushing the worldwide vaccination campaign? I don’t see what else can be done that wouldn’t simply be kicking the can down the road more.
  • pif 5y ago
    > ... that wouldn’t simply be kicking the can down the road more. Kicking the can down the road is a good thing. It buys us more time to look for a more impactful solution.
  • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
    > We still don’t seem to know if this variant is more or less contagious (R0 of 2) we already know it's far more contagious but not if it's more deadly than delta with an r0 of 2: > The estimated reproduction number, the average number of people that an individual is likely to infect, is almost 2 in Gauteng compared with nearly 1.5 nationally. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2299194-omicron-how-dangerous-is-the-new-variant-first-found-in-south-africa/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2299194-omicron-how-dan...
    • VierScar 5y ago
      I think I am misunderstanding something. But wasnt the original Covid an R0 of 2.5-3? And Delta has an R0 of 7-8? An R0 of 2 sounds like a really low infection rate in comparison, but then it's increasing rapidly and outcompeting delta? I dont get it.
      • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
        yes sorry you're right - I'm mixing something up here: > We identified five studies, which estimated the basic reproductive number for Delta. Table 1 shows that the basic reproductive number for Delta ranged from 3.2 to 8, with a mean of 5.08 -- https://academic.oup.com/view-large/305057394 https://academic.oup.com/view-large/305057394
• xlii 5y ago
  Does anyone actually have source to that? Yesterday we've seen WHO's update about Omicron which was basically "it looks like something we need to investigate, we don't know a lot yet" Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373066 Today there's anonymous WHO representative (no mention in article who exactly and when gave the statement) that there's global risk on Reuters and there are dozens of re-publications about the same, linking to Reuters as source of truth. Did position change overnight or was there any unpublished conference?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • uniqueuid 5y ago
    Well, it's been a Variant of Concern (VOC) for some days, which was a sign that it's being considered a significant risk.
    • xlii 5y ago
      It's definitely VOC, not the first one we've seen even if it does indeed seem vastly different [1]. Article includes, however, following quote: "Omicron has an unprecedented number of spike mutations, some of which are concerning for their potential impact on the trajectory of the pandemic," the WHO said. "The overall global risk ...is assessed as very high." I find "Global risk assessed as very high" statement as both very strong and emotional. It is already replicated globally in various other news sources. I checked WHO's newsroom [2] but haven't seen new press events nor news statement. Yesterday's WHO's update [3] doesn't say anything about general risk and word "high" isn't even used. Today Dr Tedros highlighted that we still don't know a lot during World Health Assembly opening speech [4]: We don’t yet know whether Omicron is associated with more transmission, more severe disease, more risk of reinfections, or more risk of evading vaccines. Scientists at WHO and around the world are working urgently to answer these questions. Reuters post itself do name 2 other sources for other quotes directly but this specific one is left as an "WHO" which makes it hard to verify. It is plausible that Reuters' journalist got some internal source on that matter or that WHO's news room was not updated after giving the statement, yet I'd rather have the WHO's official statement (i.e. on their news room website) for such circumstances. [1]: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/variants-concern [2]: https://www.who.int/news-room https://www.who.int/news-room [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373066 [4]: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-special-session-of-the-world-health-assembly---29-november-2021 https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-dir...
• shlant 5y ago
  good twitter thread that provides a level-headed perspective based on what we actually currently know: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1464222680731820043?s=20 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/146422268073182004...
  • mpfundstein 5y ago
    why should we trust this weird twitter account? where is this person even from? She/he says senior scientist? Of what?
    • YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
      Just go to the source: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron https://www.who.int/news/item/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron
    • chimprich 5y ago
      She's a well-known commentator on the pandemic. She is/was involved in the development of the Moderna vaccine, verified by various media orgs. She's a credible commentator, but she tends to skew towards the positive end of the arguments. That thread is 3 days old, and there's a bit more evidence now that Omicron is spreading quite effectively.
      • kvathupo 5y ago
        Something about this just doesn't sit well with me. I find an individual's anonymity troubling when one speaks in an authoritative manner about healthcare policy for two reasons. Firstly, it's concerning that I have to take someone's word on their authority. I'd much rather see their Google scholar to gauge the extent to which they are engaged in current research. Indeed, two researchers in the same subfield of quantum computing could easily work in different areas, say adiabatic- vs gate-based quantum computing. Secondly, I'd like to think that the reason we often interview CDC officials is since they're experienced in healthcare public policy. Especially with respect to the Twitter thread's commentary about whether we'll be "back to square one," science isn't the sole basis for policy. While I do appreciate the Twitter user's engagement with a lay audience, I hope the latter consult other sources as well. That's, however, not to undermine their endeavors: I think the Twitter user has done splendid work in encouraging readers to think critically and curiously.
• namanaggarwal 5y ago
  For those commenting that it's just common cold and about herd immunity, I think we should not miss out on overload on our medical system. This is what happened in India, due to high number of cases (even if mild) the medical infrastructure completely crashed under the load and lead to far more deaths than just a flu could have caused. Wear mask and stay indoors if possible
  • incrudible 5y ago
    > Wear mask and stay indoors if possible For all we know about transmission, you should stay outdoors, if possible. If this isn't possible, maximize ventilation. Limit contacts in general. Masks have a very modest impact on transmission.
    • timmf 5y ago
      I do agree with all your points, except: > Masks have a very modest impact on transmission They are an effective measure which has lead to significant decrease in infection rates. There are of course parameters like the type of mask.
      • mathverse 5y ago
        How many people are even using those masks correctly? There's a lot of people going around with old and contaminated masks or wearing them improperly.
        • ceejayoz 5y ago
          "People aren't using them properly" is an argument for better education, not ditching the things.
          • mathverse 5y ago
            And I have mentioned ditching the things where? It's an argument for not "relying that much" on an unreliable use of such tool like masks.
• choeger 5y ago
  There's little that can be done, sadly. We had so many shutdowns/lockdowns that did not really help (here in Germany, lockdowns were usually announced when the growth rate had already leveled off). Closing schools and kindergarten hurts kids. Home office might be an idea, where it is not already standard. What I wonder is: Instead of only restricting movement in the general population, why are there not many more tests? Why can we not PCR test the whole population every single day? Using a relatively straightforward pooling scheme that should not be too difficult, should it? At the same time: Why on earth is it so difficult to coordinate vaccination? Why is no industrialized nation capable of vaccinating 10-20% of its population on a given day? I really feel like government response has been disproportionate so far: Many restrictions and few, if any, actual actions.
  • basisword 5y ago
    In the UK we can order boxes of lateral flow tests for free online. You can easily test daily before going out with friends/going to work etc. but for some reason, despite the ease of this most people still don’t bother. Obviously governments can do better but we have free daily testing, vaccines available for almost every one, and still laziness/stupidity win in too many cases.
  • uniqueuid 5y ago
    Regarding tests: It's still problematic that self-administered antigene tests have weak sensitivity (so even if you test every day the tests will miss many cases). PCR tests cost something around 100€ a piece, so assuming Germany has ~90 million population, that's 9 billion Euros for a single cross-sectional population test. Now let's add some speculative factors: Some 10 million (+/- 10 million) are strongly opposed to state-mandated measures. Some will evade the tests, some will fake them, some may become violent. These people are also among those who are most likely to be Cov-positive. Also, testing the entire population would only help if you simultaneously lock down the borders to prevent re-import. So while broad testing has its merits, I feel like the gains here would be mostly modest.
  • dpark 5y ago
    > Why is no industrialized nation capable of vaccinating 10-20% of its population on a given day? Probably because there aren’t enough qualified people to do the work. It takes a lot of people to manage a mass vaccination. Even just crowd control at a mass vaccination site requires quite a few people. It’s not clear that capacity to vaccinate is a significant factor in industrialized nations at this point, anyway. Vaccine uptake had halted due to “hesitancy”, not capacity.
• sebow 5y ago
  "Just trust us" The way people(as in the vast majority, the non-rulers) responded to this virus and the measures following it will remain a stain on humanity. You don't even have to wait to see the negative effects the restrictions, panicking rhetoric & messages(not about the severity of the virus per se) and dividing political hacks will have on the current/future generations, it's already here. Again, this authoritarian top->down approach of "let's shut everything down because a _small_ segment of the population is kind of in danger"[and even then, most people are fine given good levels of vit. D and general immunity] is everything there was to say about it. This is not about the virus, it's about control(and money, though that's a bonus).Thinking otherwise is just delusion at this point.Vaccinated and 2-3 boosters already? Tough sh*t, the new conveniently-renamed variant Omicron will require you to have another "jab", you don't want that 1-5% chance of grandma dying, do you?
  • corinroyal 5y ago
    It's so disgusting how conservatives downplay the lethality of this disease, and get all hysterical about the inconvenience of the measures taken to stop it. Quit whining and supporting the fasists tring to prolong the pandemic for political gain, and maybe we can emerge from the crisis sooner.
• losvedir 5y ago
  As far as I know the WHO's official position is still closer to "we still don't know a lot about this variant". I'm most interested to see how severe of a disease it causes. If it's less severe but more transmissible, that's arguably a good thing. Does anyone know where this data gets published, as we learn more about this variant? Preprint papers? The WHO website? Somewhere else?
• temptemptemp111 5y ago
  Nobel prize winning inventor of PCR disagrees but his videos are automatically censored from all social media now.
• kingkawn 5y ago
  Throughout this experience the mistake has been to make discussion of the virus about the tone and nature of the discussion itself. We are so accustomed to having all problems originate between us that it is as if our minds cannot grasp having to think about a problem with a force of nature on the other side of it.
• scoopdewoop 5y ago
  The media and government can't be trusted with germ theory. The whole idea that we have control over the virus and that our actions are tantamount to killing people with it or not is ludicrous. The virus is going to spread, and its going to kill people. People aren't killing each other. We will all catch covid. The "treatment" has been so much worse than the disease. 5 million died due to covid, but hundreds of millions will die due to the global economy tanking. People acted like we were "sacrificing" lives to the economy, but in reality we were sacrificing children's childhoods for extending the lives of septuagenarians.
  • defensem3ch 5y ago
    hundreds of millions of people will die from the... economy? what? no, i think you got this backwards. nobody is being choked by the invisible hand of the market.
    • scoopdewoop 5y ago
      > The coronavirus crisis will push more than a quarter of a billion people to the brink of starvation unless swift action is taken to provide food and humanitarian relief to the most at-risk regions, the UN and other experts have warned. > About 265 million people around the world are forecast to be facing acute food insecurity by the end of this year, a doubling of the 130 million estimated to suffer severe food shortages last year. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/global-hunger-could-be-next-big-impact-of-coronavirus-pandemic https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/global-hunger-... Yeah, I got sources. Cool downvotes, team. Real meeting of the minds on this site. Some brilliant intellectuals here.
      • op00to 5y ago
        Quit being a whiny brat while immediately changing the subject to avoid a weak argument, and maybe you'll get better engagement.
  • Afforess 5y ago
    The existence of and overall success of China's zero covid strategy says you're wrong, human actions can contain it. If your reply is China's data can not be trusted, then Australia or NZ. But same conclusion, we can and should mitigate the virus. Also, the economy is doing fine. Some places better than other, but we're much better off now than in 2009, the last global recession. If this is a crisis, it's milder than the last, from an economic standpoint.
• marexv 5y ago
  It is not going to stop... new variants, booster shots, masks, lock downs, tests for everyone everyday. Get over it. It's like airport security, once setup, the system is not going away and soon nobody will remember how life used to look like before all of it happened.
  • Bud 5y ago
    It actually differs from airport security in one crucial way: vaccination actually works, and it will continue to work. Airport security measures, at least the ones commonly discussed, the ones that spring up after 9/11, have zero effect these days, since the threats they were supposedly intended to combat were solved the moment cockpit doors were required to remain locked at all times. Vaccines work, boosters work, masks work, lockdowns work, and testing works. And the combination of these measures works. They operate in tandem. I am not advocating keeping all of these measures forever—merely noting that they are not, in fact, really that comparable to airport security.
    • marexv 5y ago
      Well they do have some effects. For example, I won't even think about flying, except if it is necessary because of my work. Same as covid measures. I won't even think about participating in activities requiring me to have a green pass, except if it is necessary because of my work. Tandem is operating just fine. The thing is that it is going to operate forever now and it is not going to be pretty.
    • op00to 5y ago
      I advocate keeping all of these measures forever. Before you flame me - I don't think they are to be used constantly, or all at the same time. They are all valuable tools to reducing the pain, suffering, and lost productivity of respiratory illnesses. I'd like to see universal masking in schools during flu season, for example. Limited group of people, limited time, but would happen every year. Maybe there's a trigger for a "bad" flu season. It's insane to say we should not use things that work because they might be useful in the future. We just need to be smart about how we use all these interventions, WHICH WE ABSOLUTELY ARE.
• TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  There's a significant contingent of people who think if we all just followed every precaution, all the time, forever, "we" could stop the virus, and it would die out. Coronaviruses don't behave like that. At some point, everyone on Earth will be exposed to this virus, and masked or not, vaccinated or not, each person will have to deal with how it affects them. Some people are hardly bothered. Some die. Some wind up in the ER 3 times, and have lingering problems (like me). I get that masks can help slow transmission, but can we stop pretending that if we all "just did" whatever "the authorities" tell us to do that we would magically escape from this plague? The data from various countries concerning protocols and amount of people following them just doesn't seem to support such thinking. Such data seems to be suggesting that it's much more about genetic makeup than anything else, and not masking and distancing and hand washing.
• throwawaye3422 5y ago
  I am so tired of this bullshit, it's so damn tiring. Everything feels, just so very useless, its just sad to see how much this thing has effected everyone, everyone I love, every stranger I see, we are all getting pushed to the limits, people are depressed some people are suffering in silence while governments and organizations like the WHO are not telling us exactly what's going on, they change the narrative everyday, apparently its a lab leak, apparently its not, sometimes its bats that caused this, sometimes its some poor nobody at a wet market who caused all this, you listen to ten experts and you hear 20 different stories. I don't know what to believe in anymore, no matter how much I follow the rules, wear masks, take care to social distance myself from others this things doesn't seem to go away. The media says its the fault of the people who are not social distancing, they are saying the vaccine will work, just two shots they said, then it became 3, and now apparently we might need to keep taking this vaccine longer. Oh no what? there's another version and the vaccine I took are no longer useful? Apparently the people concerned about governments using this opportunity to grab more power to keep us all in order are crazy antivaxers, the moment you step out of line you become a "non believer" in science, the moment someone questions science they become an idiot a hillbilly a tinfoil wearing lunatic. Apparently we should all fall in line and listen or else we are the problem. Reasonable people I knew in my life are now getting more and more agitated, many people are angry, many people are lost and suffering in silence. The rich are getting richer, the powerful are getting away even after they were caught abusing children just because their mother is a powerful person. Somethings gotta give, we are at our limits now.
  • periheli0n 5y ago
    Understandable reaction. Although the underlying problem seems to be the uncertainty of not knowing for certain, and the confusing and contradictory information, and the question of culpability. Fact is: - It is quite clear how to protect oneself. Wear masks, get vaccinated, try to reduce contact, keep distance. - Governments need to balance safety concerns with concerns for the economy and the health system. Not an easy tasks and it's different everywhere. - The only context in which it is important where the virus came from is science, and perhaps the development of better vaccines and preventing future pandemics. For the individual it is irrelevant. - The question whose "fault" it is is totally useless. The virus is here and we will all get it. The only question is how we get through this.
• irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Reminder that face coverings/surgical masks have very little impact, and may even be worse than no mask. Wear N95 respirator masks if you worried, those have been shown to reduce exposure by about 44% (edit sorry 44% is how much got through, so I guess that makes a 66% improvement). https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long "Results The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%." Edit: I just noticed the authors have added a comment re. Covid, which I will copy in full... "Critical shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) have resulted in the US Centers for Disease Control downgrading their recommendations for health workers treating COVID-19 patients from respirators to surgical masks and finally to home-made cloth masks. As authors of the only published randomised controlled clinical trial of cloth masks, we have been getting daily emails about this from health workers concerned about using cloth masks. The study found that cloth mask wearers had higher rates of infection than even the standard practice control group of health workers, and the filtration provided by cloth masks was poor compared to surgical masks. At the time of the study, there had been very little work done in this space, and so little thought into how to improve the protective value of the cloth masks. Until now, most guidelines on PPE did not even mention cloth masks, despite many health workers in Asia using them. Health workers are asking us if they should wear no mask at all if cloth masks are the only option. Our research does not condone health workers working unprotected. We recommend that health workers should not work during the COVID-19 pandemic without respiratory protection as a matter of work health and safety. In addition, if health workers get infected, high rates of staff absenteeism from illness may also affect health system capacity to respond. Some health workers may still choose to work in inadequate PPE. In this case, the physical barrier provided by a cloth mask may afford some protection, but likely much less than a surgical mask or a respirator. It is important to note that some subjects in the control arm wore surgical masks, which could explain why cloth masks performed poorly compared to the control group. We also did an analysis of all mask wearers, and the higher infection rate in cloth mask group persisted. The cloth masks may have been worse in our study because they were not washed well enough – they may become damp and contaminated. The cloth masks used in our study were products manufactured locally, and fabrics can vary in quality. This and other limitations were also discussed. There are now numerous reports of health workers wearing home made cloth masks, or re-using disposable mask and respirators, and asking for guidance. If health workers choose to work in these circumstances, guidance should be given around the use. There have been a number of laboratory studies looking at the effectiveness of different types of cloth materials, single versus multiple layers and about the role that filters can play. However, none have been tested in a clinical trial for efficacy. If health workers choose to work using cloth masks, we suggest that they have at least two and cycle them, so that each one can be washed and dried after daily use. Sanitizer spray or UV disinfection boxes can be used to clean them during breaks in a single day. These are pragmatic, rather than evidence-based suggestions, given the situation. Finally for COVID-19, wearing a mask is not enough to protect healthcare workers – use of gloves and goggles are also required as a minimum, as SARS-CoV-2 may infect not only through the respiratory route, but also through contact with contaminated surfaces and self-contamination. Governments and hospitals should plan and stockpile proper disposable products such as respirators and surgical masks to ensure the occupational health and safety of health workers. This appears to have been a failure in many countries, including high income countries" https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.responses#covid-19-shortages-of-masks-and-the-use-of-cloth-masks-as-a-last-resort https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.responses#covid-...
• Toine 5y ago
  This whole thing will never end, will it ? Should we be prepared to live with masks, mandatory vaccination, QR codes and worse for the rest of our lives ?
  • throwaway14356 5y ago
    i keep thinking how the elderly experience the measures as forever
  • CodeGlitch 5y ago
    I don't think so. I think what we need to do is cast the net wider with future vaccines. Imagine a universal-viral vaccine - giving you strong immunity against all kinds of viruses and any future mutations. Of course such a thing hasn't been invented yet (AFAIK). I'm sure people under the threat of smallpox felt just like you.
• mise_en_place 5y ago
  The WHO has lost all credibility in my eyes. I’d bet all of my money on the South African health system, which has not only dealt with HIV/AIDS but many tropical diseases. They literally have the best ID departments in the world.
  • sebow 5y ago
    WHO lost all credibility since ~Jan 2020(If i recall correctly between 1 through 15) when they stated on couple occasions that Covid was a mere "nothingburger", when in fact western journalists have been expressing concerns since late November through December.I understand most people don't consume rolling news or independent reporting, but it is still not an argument. You can't seriously expect WHO to not have the information independent journalists or 'simple plebs' do. When the genie was out of the bottle(as in containing the virus in China was not possible), they switched gears and went with the opposite narrative, even though not much was known about the severity of the virus besides it spreading very quickly and easily.This is not the scientific method, because if it was you wouldn't firstly claim it was nothing and then suddenly say it was so bad you need to half-ass shut down civilization.A scientific-method approach would have been: "we don't know" until "we do" , not to mention denying the claim it was a lab-leak (which is now the most probable thing). As they say in politics & propaganda: "never let a good crisis go to waste".WHO and national institutions that were responsible for measures and actions governments should take are fully responsible, but nothing will happen.The fact people still debate about the origin of the virus should be indicative that facts don't matter, but twitter blue checkmarks and fact-checking labels on mainstream platforms do.
• jl6 5y ago
  Imagine a new CPU CVE is announced. It has the potential to corrupt customer data, but the likelihood and severity of the corruption hasn’t been established yet (it could be anything from flipping ECC-correctable bits through to total system compromise). The flaw is exploitable over the network, and affects potentially all CPUs. The only way to avoid any risk of compromise is to disconnect your servers from the network. Millions of people depend on your servers. Some of them will die if their data is corrupted. Some of them will die if you disconnect your servers and cut them off from accessing their data. It will take security researchers about a month to work out the likelihood and severity of corruption, and about 3 months to deliver a fix. By the time we find out, the corruption may already have affected your servers. The eventual fix isn’t guaranteed to be reliable, nor can it fix corruption that has already happened. The CVE may already have been mitigated by a previous microcode update for a similar previous issue. The security researchers are working on determining that too. What will you do?
  • irthomasthomas 5y ago
    If you where talking about medicine, then the guiding principal primum non nocere would dictate that you do nothing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere
• lifesucks1 5y ago
  everybody and their dog gets it. whoever survives are the ones who get to live in this world. Pretty grim the way I see it.
• raadore 5y ago
  HN folks are all pseudo, amateur, professional scientists of all fields, at least that’s what I pickup from the conversations. A true scientist, ex. Marie Skłodowska-Curie, will perform every kind of test possible to ensure he gets to the truth. Here’s a scientific test for COVID: turn off all media, news and information sharing apps for 3-5 days, report daily your findings, continue with the test after 5 days if no abnormalities detected. Share your results with others.
• Ambolia 5y ago
  I don't know, this variant sounds an excuse for the expected failure of the vaccination plan, now that cold weather and flu season is here it's will hard to keep pretending vaccines are leading us to any kind of long term victory.