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Summary: PCR tests still work, certain therapies still work, and interestingly, they claim to already know that "Current vaccines remain effective against sever

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.
sudosysgen 5y ago
We know from previous studies that T-cell immunity is much more resistant to mutation than antibodies. It's almost completely certain that vaccines will be effective against severe diseases and death.

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.

sudosysgen 5y ago

We know from previous studies that T-cell immunity is much more resistant to mutation than antibodies. It's almost completely certain that vaccines will be effective against severe diseases and death.