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Evidence so far: - Pathogenicity: Virtually no hospitalizations or deaths. There's only one reported death so far "with" Omicron, about which there are absolut

Evidence so far: - Pathogenicity: Virtually no hospitalizations or deaths. There's only one reported death so far "with" Omicron, about which there are absolutely no details released whatsoever and which was rather suspiciously announced by the UK PM just before a vote. - Pathogenicity: all reports from SA say the symptoms are not only extremely mild, but don't actually match COVID symptoms at all. The first person to get it thought they'd simply been in the sun too long. Muscle aches, a slight headache, etc. Basically common cold symptoms. - Irrelevance of vaccines: in Denmark the percentage of Omicron cases that are vaccinated is the same as the overall vaccination rate, i.e. there's ~no impact of vaccines. There's really two ways to look at this. One is that the vaccine programme has now completely failed, but it doesn't matter because new COVID is mild. The other is that really, Omicron isn't a COVID-causing virus at all, and that this marks the end of COVID. Because: 1. The symptoms are different. Different symptoms = different disease. 2. The severity is different. Both are mild but Omicron appears to be super mild. What it creates can barely be classed as a "disease" at all. 3. The virus is different. Much more heavily mutated than any other variant so far, in fact, so much so that some of the DRASTIC people are starting to suspect it may be another lab leak. Unfortunately, there have been scientists doing GoF research on SARS-CoV-2, their papers are public to view. I think in a properly functioning and rational health system, it would be very hard to describe this new variant as COVID. Based on the evidence and reports so far it would be more rational to describe it as a common cold virus, of the type that occur every year.

romwell 5y ago
> One is that the vaccine programme has now completely failed You mean succeeded? As in, prevented many people from dying, and forced the virus to mutate into Omicron, which is far less dangerous.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all. As for the vaccines forcing mutation, SA is only 25% vaccinated so that doesn't work. Have the vaccines succeeded in preventing many people from dying? That is something for history to judge. There just isn't good enough data on vaccine deaths to judge that at the moment. The problem for COVID vaccines is that whilst they may some people from dying of COVID, not many life years are saved because almost all the COVID deaths are concentrated in the very elderly. Meanwhile vaccine injuries are a looming iceberg because they aren't being properly tracked or recorded. The number of random cardiac failures in athletes is well up this year and eventually people will stop being in denial about the reasons. The long term damage from this programme can be judged in five or ten years. However, if Omicron does display Delta as it appears to be doing very rapidly, we can say that at most the vaccines were useful for maybe 6-8 months. Bearing in mind you aren't "vaccinated" until your second dose and there's a gap.
  - chimprich 5y ago
    > Have the vaccines succeeded in preventing many people from dying? That is something for history to judge Please don't post this nonsense on HN. There's ample evidence for vaccines saving the lives of millions.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    I don't think I've ever seen so many wrong sentences in a single HN comment. I would love to go through and debunk them all, but I don't have the time or the crayons, nor would I think it would be effective in changing your beliefs. You're too far gone.
  - romwell 5y ago
    All I ask in response to this comment is that if you do get COVID, please post somewhere on HN so that you could be properly nominated for the Herman Cain award[1]. Thank you in advance. [1]https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
  - ADSSDA 5y ago
    > Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all. It's disappointing to see complete lies like this on HN. Vaccines have been, and remain, incredibly effective in preventing hospitalization/death, even without a booster (although everyone should also get their booster).
    - native_samples 5y ago
      And why do we think that? Because public health agencies said so? It's not because the trials proved it - they didn't. At only ~64,000 participants the e.g. Pfizer trial was not powered to show any difference to deaths and didn't use hospitalizations as a goal metric either, only infections. And so we're forced to rely on the testimony of the same people in charge of the program, where their data is often missing or deceptive in some way. For example Germany has been claiming nearly all cases occur in the unvaccinated. It turned out this wasn't true. Rather, they don't have data at all on the status of most cases, and then reallocate all the "unknown" column to "unvaccinated" because ... well, why not? No matter what they do, plenty of people will still take their word for everything. This was revealed by Die Welt and the response was nothing. They still do it, as far as I know. The UK data is usually considered to be the best, as in, the most detailed. And there, when the data on deaths is studied carefully it turns out to be riddled with anomalies and problems that cast doubt on whether vaccines did in fact reduce mortality (the numbers are low enough that statistical artifacts can actually matter). For example, in the UK data vaccination reduces non-COVID deaths in unvaccinated people. Don't take my word for it, ask a professor of risk management: http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-systematic-miscategorisation.html http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-syste... "Our research team have now analysed the ONS England November mortality data. We conclude that, despite seeming evidence to support vaccine effectiveness, this conclusion is doubtful because of a range of serious inconsistencies and anomalies", "The ONS data provide no reliable evidence that the vaccines reduce all-cause mortality."
chimprich 5y ago
> Pathogenicity: Virtually no hospitalizations or deaths This is not correct. We've seen quite a few hospitalisations. See the dramatic uptick in South African hospital numbers. Deaths have generally occurred about 4 weeks after infection. Omicron was only reported to the WHO about 3 weeks ago. The rest of your post is of a similar level of confusion.
kcplate 5y ago
> I think in a properly functioning and rational health system, it would be very hard to describe this new variant as COVID. Based on the evidence and reports so far it would be more rational to describe it as a common cold virus, of the type that occur every year. I suspect that if this omicron had emerged in 2018 at least with the symptoms and lack of severe disease that we have seen so far…it would likely have been described as a virulent common cold and may have gotten an occasional news mention, but zero public and government panic. I think the phrase “Look for the devil and you will find him” is going to describe virology and government approach to virology for probably the next decade. This is a shame, because it seems to create and feed tyrants at almost every level of government.
manwe150 5y ago
> Irrelevance of vaccines: in Denmark the percentage of Omicron cases that are vaccinated is the same as the overall vaccination rate, i.e. there's ~no impact of vaccines. I see currently reported numbers of 75% and 81% for those rates respectively, which means unvaccinated people are over-represented by about 30% relative their percentage of the population. Now these numbers are still very new, and unreliable, have no confidence interval, and only for infection, not hospitalization. But I don’t think that difference would be irrelevant, unless it ceases to hold up after data is collected over the next few weeks.

romwell 5y ago

> One is that the vaccine programme has now completely failed You mean succeeded? As in, prevented many people from dying, and forced the virus to mutate into Omicron, which is far less dangerous.

native_samples 5y ago
Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all. As for the vaccines forcing mutation, SA is only 25% vaccinated so that doesn't work. Have the vaccines succeeded in preventing many people from dying? That is something for history to judge. There just isn't good enough data on vaccine deaths to judge that at the moment. The problem for COVID vaccines is that whilst they may some people from dying of COVID, not many life years are saved because almost all the COVID deaths are concentrated in the very elderly. Meanwhile vaccine injuries are a looming iceberg because they aren't being properly tracked or recorded. The number of random cardiac failures in athletes is well up this year and eventually people will stop being in denial about the reasons. The long term damage from this programme can be judged in five or ten years. However, if Omicron does display Delta as it appears to be doing very rapidly, we can say that at most the vaccines were useful for maybe 6-8 months. Bearing in mind you aren't "vaccinated" until your second dose and there's a gap.
- chimprich 5y ago
  > Have the vaccines succeeded in preventing many people from dying? That is something for history to judge Please don't post this nonsense on HN. There's ample evidence for vaccines saving the lives of millions.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  I don't think I've ever seen so many wrong sentences in a single HN comment. I would love to go through and debunk them all, but I don't have the time or the crayons, nor would I think it would be effective in changing your beliefs. You're too far gone.
- romwell 5y ago
  All I ask in response to this comment is that if you do get COVID, please post somewhere on HN so that you could be properly nominated for the Herman Cain award[1]. Thank you in advance. [1]https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
- ADSSDA 5y ago
  > Failed as in the vaccines, that were being advertised as being 95% effective with no talk of any boosters only 6 months ago, no longer provide any protection at all. It's disappointing to see complete lies like this on HN. Vaccines have been, and remain, incredibly effective in preventing hospitalization/death, even without a booster (although everyone should also get their booster).
  - native_samples 5y ago
    And why do we think that? Because public health agencies said so? It's not because the trials proved it - they didn't. At only ~64,000 participants the e.g. Pfizer trial was not powered to show any difference to deaths and didn't use hospitalizations as a goal metric either, only infections. And so we're forced to rely on the testimony of the same people in charge of the program, where their data is often missing or deceptive in some way. For example Germany has been claiming nearly all cases occur in the unvaccinated. It turned out this wasn't true. Rather, they don't have data at all on the status of most cases, and then reallocate all the "unknown" column to "unvaccinated" because ... well, why not? No matter what they do, plenty of people will still take their word for everything. This was revealed by Die Welt and the response was nothing. They still do it, as far as I know. The UK data is usually considered to be the best, as in, the most detailed. And there, when the data on deaths is studied carefully it turns out to be riddled with anomalies and problems that cast doubt on whether vaccines did in fact reduce mortality (the numbers are low enough that statistical artifacts can actually matter). For example, in the UK data vaccination reduces non-COVID deaths in unvaccinated people. Don't take my word for it, ask a professor of risk management: http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-systematic-miscategorisation.html http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/12/possible-syste... "Our research team have now analysed the ONS England November mortality data. We conclude that, despite seeming evidence to support vaccine effectiveness, this conclusion is doubtful because of a range of serious inconsistencies and anomalies", "The ONS data provide no reliable evidence that the vaccines reduce all-cause mortality."

chimprich 5y ago

> Pathogenicity: Virtually no hospitalizations or deaths This is not correct. We've seen quite a few hospitalisations. See the dramatic uptick in South African hospital numbers. Deaths have generally occurred about 4 weeks after infection. Omicron was only reported to the WHO about 3 weeks ago. The rest of your post is of a similar level of confusion.

kcplate 5y ago

> I think in a properly functioning and rational health system, it would be very hard to describe this new variant as COVID. Based on the evidence and reports so far it would be more rational to describe it as a common cold virus, of the type that occur every year. I suspect that if this omicron had emerged in 2018 at least with the symptoms and lack of severe disease that we have seen so far…it would likely have been described as a virulent common cold and may have gotten an occasional news mention, but zero public and government panic. I think the phrase “Look for the devil and you will find him” is going to describe virology and government approach to virology for probably the next decade. This is a shame, because it seems to create and feed tyrants at almost every level of government.

manwe150 5y ago

> Irrelevance of vaccines: in Denmark the percentage of Omicron cases that are vaccinated is the same as the overall vaccination rate, i.e. there's ~no impact of vaccines. I see currently reported numbers of 75% and 81% for those rates respectively, which means unvaccinated people are over-represented by about 30% relative their percentage of the population. Now these numbers are still very new, and unreliable, have no confidence interval, and only for infection, not hospitalization. But I don’t think that difference would be irrelevant, unless it ceases to hold up after data is collected over the next few weeks.