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Data seems to indicate omicron milder, more transmissible, hospitalizations low
- pc86 5y agoHow does one jump from "Omicron is more transmissible and less deadly than Delta" to "Immunity...is kicking in!" That seems like quite a leap compared to a seemingly much more likely reason, that this is a mutation and it just happens to be less deadly (probably because of whatever change makes it more transmissible but still basically random chance/evolutionary pressure). I don't see how previous infections and/or vaccinations have anything to do with the characteristics of Omicron.
- wccrawford 5y ago>Immunity through vaccination and previous infection is kicking in! Because this version is more transmissible, and (theoretically?) causes your body to create antibodies that are effective against the other variants, this version of the virus will cause more people than ever to have antibodies without as much risk of death or long-term illness. People will either get the vaccine, or their risk of contracting covid will go up. They didn't mean "has kicked in", they mean it's starting to.
- newbamboo 5y agoI gave them more credit than that. Maybe I misinterpreted their tweet to favorably.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- singlow 5y agoIf mutation increases chance of vaccinated person getting a detectable infection, the hospitalization stats may show lower rates even though it is no less severe for the unvaccinated population.
- newbamboo 5y agoThis was my interpretation. Disclaimer: I have been an err on the side of caution person since Jan 2020.
- Majromax 5y ago> (probably because of whatever change makes it more transmissible but still basically random chance/evolutionary pressure) That's the trick. Delta already appears to be very, very transmissible. If Omicron's growth is due entirely to improved transmissibility, then it would have to spread in a non-distanced, vulnerable population at an implausibly high rate, comparable to some of the most transmissible viruses ever studied. However, if Omicron's improved spread is partially through immune escape, then its growth could be explained through reinfections and breakthrough infections -- people who are largely immune to Delta are contracting a mild case of Omicron. That does not make the variant inherently less deadly, since it's not an apples-to-apples comparison on the ill populations. It will probably be some time yet before we have reliable statistics on the severity of Omicron in the never-infected, never-vaccinated cohort. In the meantime, there's reasonable cause to be concerned for vulnerable people (elderly, people with lung conditions, or the immunocompromised) who are partially relying on low community infection rates for their personal protection.
- modulusshift 5y agoSo is this the fabled transition into COVID becoming the common cold? More infectious, less deadly?
- fennecfoxen 5y agoIt turns out deadliness is a liability in the long term evolutionary success of most viruses!
- marginalia_nu 5y agoSomeone should let smallpox and anthrax in on this knowledge.
- fennecfoxen 5y agoWhat smallpox? It's been eradicated.
- mint2 5y agoThe reason it’s eradicated is entirely due to vaccinations and the unique fact it had no animal reservoirs. Prior to that, it was both very deadly and very contagious. Those facts were not hurting it. Those attributes did not make it evolutionarily weak unless you count motivating people to make vaccines. What is your point?
- cercatrova 5y agoI don't think they're disagreeing with you, just saying that one cannot "ask smallpox" because it's already eradicated.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoSmallpox still exists as lab samples. It's in virus prison. It's not dead.
- newbamboo 5y agoKey words in the tweet: “Immunity through … previous infection is kicking in!” And the elderly and morbidly obese have already been removed from the sample. What’s the vaccination rate in SA again?
- bewaretheirs 5y agoVaccination rate in SA is high for Africa but still low - was 35% in late November. Unlike much of the rest of Africa they're not limited by vaccine supply and have asked vaccine makers to slow shipments as they have enough in stock at the moment: See: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-delays-covid-vaccine-deliveries-inoculations-slow-2021-11-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- disambiguation 5y ago36% https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_South_Africa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Sout... But also > Around 60-70% of South Africans have already had a Covid-19 infection since the start of the epidemic in March 2020. https://www.news24.com/health24/medical/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/omicron-reinfection-likely-but-will-immunity-from-past-infection-vaccines-hold-up-for-severe-covid-20211204-4 https://www.news24.com/health24/medical/infectious-diseases/...
- bewaretheirs 5y agoTitle should say "omicron", not "omnicron".
- dang 5y agoFixed now. Thanks!
- bewaretheirs 5y agoThank you!
- cbfrench 5y ago(Omnicron would make a great name for a time-travel company, however.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tomp 5y agoSome people will excuse government over-reaction by saying "they were right to react strongly because this variant could have been more lethal". We'll see if the governments will ease these restrictions now that it's becoming more and more clear that there's no reason to panic.
- happytoexplain 5y ago>"they were right to react strongly because this variant could have been more lethal" It sounds like you're disagreeing with this logic (from the phrase "excuse government over-reach"), but you haven't elucidated.
- tomp 5y agoI don't disagree entirely. I mainly think it's stupid. Flight bans haven't worked in March 2020, nor December 2021 ("UK variant"), and there's no reason to believe they would work now. The only thing that seems to work (to some degree) is AUS/NZ/SG-style total flight ban. But then the purpose of politics is showmanship, not effective action.
- nyokodo 5y ago> AUS/NZ/SG-style total flight ban. Thankfully they weren’t total flight bans, but flights are the only way in, and they required quarantine. This worked until Delta.
- tomp 5y ago“Total” in the sense of “from everywhere” and “for everyone”, not just “from South Africa” or “for unvaccinated”
- Majromax 5y agoThis would be consistent with Omicron having certain immune-escape features. People who previously had strong, neutralizing immunity (from vaccination or prior infection) may experience reinfection/breakthrough infection, but because of T-cell immunity or residual antibody immunity the variant is less likely to cause severe disease than it would in a non-immune person. If the above hypothesis is true, that doesn't necessarily make Omicron "milder" than Delta. Omicron would be infecting people who would not be infected by Delta, so in those people (some disease) is more severe than (no disease). I have not yet seen evidence one way or the other regarding severity for a first infection in a non-immune person. That is to say, "Omicron is milder!" could be an artifact of Simpson's Paradox.
- eliben 5y agoWhat confuses me about these reports is that the relevant South African districts report ~25% vaccination rates; so it sounds unlikely that the mildness observed is due to previous immunity. Or is the assumption that most of these people have had COVID before?
- disambiguation 5y ago> Around 60-70% of South Africans have already had a Covid-19 infection since the start of the epidemic in March 2020. https://www.news24.com/health24/medical/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/omicron-reinfection-likely-but-will-immunity-from-past-infection-vaccines-hold-up-for-severe-covid-20211204-4 https://www.news24.com/health24/medical/infectious-diseases/...
- Arete314159 5y agoOther scientists have pointed out that hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging indicator. Nobody can say it's milder yet. Try again in 6 weeks.
- asadkn 5y agoThat seems like a rather premature conclusion. WHO mentioned: > Data which looked at hospitalizations across South Africa between 14 November and 4 December found that ICU occupancy was only 6.3 % – which is very low compared with the same period when the country was facing the peak linked to the Delta variant in July. Did they account for previous infection or vaccination status? What if a lot of these are breakthroughs/reinfections. Considering excess deaths in South Africa, their national data on number of cases is sort of, doubtful [1]. Further, they seem to have observed mainly a population under 40. [1]: https://theconversation.com/unpacking-south-africas-excess-deaths-what-is-known-and-where-the-gaps-are-167920 https://theconversation.com/unpacking-south-africas-excess-d...
- tynpeddler 5y ago> That seems like a rather premature conclusion The "Seems to indicate" verbiage means that these are early findings, expected to stay the same, but may change over time.
- sjg007 5y agoSo a random twitter thread from some random twitter user? How about post tweets from epidemiologists who study the thing. Right now there is a big dichotomy. The majority of the epidemiologists and scientists say things are going to be bad. Then we have mainstream media going off of clinical notes. Still those notes don't square with increased hospitalizations of the very young. We are probably right in the middle of Simpson's paradox and only time will tell.
- danaris 5y agoHaving a bit of cognitive dissonance to find out that experienced vaccine researchers are furries? The poster's bio on the right clearly states that they're a senior vaccine R&D scientist, and they've been posting well-sourced and cogent analysis of the pandemic since it started. This isn't just some rando on Twitter.
- akomtu 5y agoMy go-to response to fearmongering around omicron is asking for mortality stats compared to Delta.
- nomel 5y agoThat would require being aware of "immunity" in the population being compared, with order of least to most being something like: unvaccinated without previous infection, previous infection, vaccinated, and vaccinated with breakthrough infection/previous infection with vaccine. If you just looked at something raw like hospitalization/infected, like I see being used, you don't get a meaningful comparison, since much of the population now has some form of immunity compared to delta. The most interesting would be comparing hospitalization/infected for unvaccinated at some older age, like > 50yo.
- sjg007 5y agoIt's literally too early to answer that question. The proxies at this point are basically linearly related -> case counts, hospitalizations, ICU, death. It took months to answer that for Delta vs the reference... And everyone said Delta was less lethal than the original strain and surprise it is not.
- rsynnott 5y agoKey word, omitted from the title here: 'Preliminary'.