9 ms·

Omicron infections appear no less severe than Delta; Covid-19 lowers sperm count

36 points by lsllc 5y ago

dsq 5y ago
Does the lower count imply lowered fertility? If so, there should be an affect on births. Is there data to indicate this (after two years of covid)?
- elboru 5y ago
  There is, some countries are reaching dangerous low fertility rates. But, then again, a lot of people in reproductive ages would consciously try to avoid getting pregnant in the middle of a pandemic. I guess we’ll only really know decades later.
rsfern 5y ago
I was hoping for new information, but the points on severity in this article just summarize the recent imperial college preprint, which has been discussed quite a bit. In contrast to just about all the headlines I’ve seen based on that article, what the data actually show is that it was still too early to infer anything about severity of omicron at the time of analysis (over a week ago now)
tromp 5y ago
Strange to imagine Nature evolving viruses as a defense mechanism against the environmental destruction wrought by human overpopulation...
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  Nature's not under threat, just biodiversity. We could not destroy all life on Earth if we wanted to. What we're doing is ripping leaves and branches off the tree of life. It's sad beyond belief, but it's not a threat to life itself. It's fun to imagine, but we have as of yet no reason to believe life in its totality per se is agentic. Ultimately this problem, the motivation to solve it, and any solution to it must come from humanity. Nothing else cares.
refurb 5y ago
The fact that multiple countries that had removed most restrictions seem to desperately be putting them back in place makes me think they’ve seen data that is making them very worried. This seems to fit the bill.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  Enough to close everything in the dead of winter and during celebration season
  - refurb 5y ago
    I hope that’s the only case but Canada is saying “this will be the worst wave so far”. They are closing schools and most restaurants and bars and gyms. Far faster and more restrictive than ever before. The UK, Netherlands, Germany are all imposing new restrictions when a few months ago they had removed most. For whatever reason they think Omicron could be a huge problem.
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      I guess we'll see. On the west coast, it's my last gym night.
    - rytcio 5y ago
      Or they just like being totalitarian
- yodelshady 5y ago
  As on other HN threads, transmissibility (Omicron is almost certainly more transmissible) has an exponential effect on healthcare demand and severity is linear (1). Plus if you're wrong about it being less deadly, no do-overs. Though, arguably, it's already way too late to do anything but look like you're doing something. (1) Pseudo-linear? It's more like shifting the peak of a bell curve.
ekianjo 5y ago
> The semen itself was not infectious, the researchers found. But among 35 men who provided samples within a month after recovery from symptomatic infection, reductions in sperm motility were evident in 60% and sperm counts were reduced in 37%. looks like they didnt compare the same participants before and after, so this seems like a poor way to measure anything.
- Arnt 5y ago
  Well, I don't know much about donating semen, but it doesn't seem outrageous that the semen quality of donors might be monitored, such that old data is available to be compared against new. Or do you actually know that this isn't the case?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Where does it state they were prior donors? I had the same thought - they must have a “before” to compare to.
    - Arnt 5y ago
      Uhm… I think that's something I assumed when I saw that they cited sperm counts for only 35 men in a study with over two hundred thousand participants. Thinking about it now: Even if there are only 100,000 men, it seems implausible that only 35 of 100,000 would be able and willing to wank for the progress of science and the benefit of mankind. So there must be some other condition, some strict other condition.
irthomasthomas 5y ago
South Africa had it first. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/#graph-deaths-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri... And, as expected, it appears to be far less harmful than Delta, which was less harmful than the original novel cov2. This is how a virus evolves, it gets weaker, which allows it to spread faster. Dead people don't spread viruses. It looks from the data that we are finally at the end of this pandemic.
- pibechorro 5y ago
  Almost as if natural immunity was the answer all along..
  - ckdarby 5y ago
    At the cost of millions of lives. People tend to forget that and skip over what they're proposing is the death of millions.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      I don't take sides in this crazy divisive topic but please don't ignore that no small amount of people died almost immediately after getting the vaccine as well. Some smaller countries (or districts) also reported higher deaths of the vaccines themselves compared to Covid -- which isn't solid data to go by but it's still quite an interesting data point. Your argument should go both ways for it to be objective. --- EDIT: And of course I immediately regret posting in a Covid thread. Even just trying to say there are shades of gray and I get immediately labelled and flagged. Enjoy your echo chamber, guys. What an extremist age we are living in. :( This was my last ever time I will be posting in any such thread (not only on HN). You won. Do sleep soundly knowing that there won't be any critical thinking process involved. Hope that "scientific" approach makes you happy.
      - _kulang 5y ago
        They reported lower deaths from COVID vs. vaccines because they didn't have rampant COVID but also had high vaccination rates, it really was that simple, and it is damaging (and strictly incorrect) to discuss this 'data point' without the appropriate context. Because of this, the vaccine looks like an 'unnecessary risk' until you start getting major outbreaks. And calling this a 'divisive topic' lends too much credence to anti-vax dogma
deburo 5y ago
Considering the previous extraordinary claim that it may be less severe, I would’ve like a breakdown of the reported population, and numbers for the hospitalization rate even if it’s similar to delta.
xyzzy21 5y ago
This occurs for the same reason the spike protein "spikes" in the ovaries: the epithelial receptors for ACE2 and in the ovaries and in placentas are also present in the testes. BTW Nicki Manaj was correct about her cousin!
penjelly 5y ago
> For vaccines available in the UK, effectiveness against symptomatic Omicron infection ranged from 0% to 20% after two doses, and from 55% to 80% following a booster dose how does this make any sense? a booster is the same as the original vaccine, the only reason i can see this making any sense is if the vaccine effectiveness was waning over time and everyone who they tested had been 6+ months since their 2 doses edit: it appears they measure antibody titers as a means of determining whether youll get symptoms or not. I find it strange that the goalpost is now avoiding "symptomatic infection" instead of "severe desease". Cold symptoms are symptoms but they arent anything to worry about typically?
- tester89 5y ago
  At least in this test https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-provide-update-omicron-variant https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta... they did account for that, which does suggest that 3 doses are in fact better than 2 without the waning effect. > The sera were collected from subjects 3 weeks after receiving the second dose or one month after receiving the third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
- jlokier 5y ago
  The doses do not all set your immune system to the same state, despite being the same substance. The subsequent doses cause further evolution within the body to broaden the spectrum of its response. This is why there were two doses in the first place, on a schedule, instead of one dose. The sequence is more like a progressive immune system training program than a one-off health powerup like you'd get in a video game. Omicron is close enough that the figures show a significant effect after the third dose compared with the second. It was not something which could be assumed, because the response curve depends on details of the virus, so the recent data is good news. However the scientists had enough understanding of the details, and Omicron spreads so fast with unknown consequences at this time, that it was worth rolling out the booster soon after Omicron was detected. It is a popular misconception that each vaccine sets a simple "immunity %" stat, and that the booster simply resets that stat after it wanes. It's an easy idea to explain, but the immune processes are more subtle than that. Perhaps we need some of that subtlety to be better known now, so that people understand why the booster sequence is useful. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59639973.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59639973.amp
parasense 5y ago
> lowers sperm count Alas! We can probably have an interesting conversation about evolution, adaptation, and fitness for survival. Besides the obvious potential for lower population growth, how does a lower sperm count of any entire set of generations impact the future species, and society?
Madmallard 5y ago
Who is telling the truth? I’ve seen multiple youtube MDs bring up studies that claim the infections are typically milder than previous covid strains. These publications are on public news outlets but I do not know how they are vetted for credibility nor do I know the credibility of the research they’re citing. In more than one recent example the CDC was described by Zdogg MD and Vinay Prasad, who are definitely competent and credible presenters of medical information, to be utilizing really crappy data and sometimes even flat out saying things that are wrong. I really hate this information war environment surrounding covid. You actually cannot know the truth it seems.

36 points by lsllc 5y ago

dsq 5y ago

Does the lower count imply lowered fertility? If so, there should be an affect on births. Is there data to indicate this (after two years of covid)?

elboru 5y ago
There is, some countries are reaching dangerous low fertility rates. But, then again, a lot of people in reproductive ages would consciously try to avoid getting pregnant in the middle of a pandemic. I guess we’ll only really know decades later.

rsfern 5y ago

I was hoping for new information, but the points on severity in this article just summarize the recent imperial college preprint, which has been discussed quite a bit. In contrast to just about all the headlines I’ve seen based on that article, what the data actually show is that it was still too early to infer anything about severity of omicron at the time of analysis (over a week ago now)

tromp 5y ago

Strange to imagine Nature evolving viruses as a defense mechanism against the environmental destruction wrought by human overpopulation...

Jeff_Brown 5y ago
Nature's not under threat, just biodiversity. We could not destroy all life on Earth if we wanted to. What we're doing is ripping leaves and branches off the tree of life. It's sad beyond belief, but it's not a threat to life itself. It's fun to imagine, but we have as of yet no reason to believe life in its totality per se is agentic. Ultimately this problem, the motivation to solve it, and any solution to it must come from humanity. Nothing else cares.

refurb 5y ago

The fact that multiple countries that had removed most restrictions seem to desperately be putting them back in place makes me think they’ve seen data that is making them very worried. This seems to fit the bill.

brailsafe 5y ago
Enough to close everything in the dead of winter and during celebration season
- refurb 5y ago
  I hope that’s the only case but Canada is saying “this will be the worst wave so far”. They are closing schools and most restaurants and bars and gyms. Far faster and more restrictive than ever before. The UK, Netherlands, Germany are all imposing new restrictions when a few months ago they had removed most. For whatever reason they think Omicron could be a huge problem.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    I guess we'll see. On the west coast, it's my last gym night.
  - rytcio 5y ago
    Or they just like being totalitarian
yodelshady 5y ago
As on other HN threads, transmissibility (Omicron is almost certainly more transmissible) has an exponential effect on healthcare demand and severity is linear (1). Plus if you're wrong about it being less deadly, no do-overs. Though, arguably, it's already way too late to do anything but look like you're doing something. (1) Pseudo-linear? It's more like shifting the peak of a bell curve.

ekianjo 5y ago

> The semen itself was not infectious, the researchers found. But among 35 men who provided samples within a month after recovery from symptomatic infection, reductions in sperm motility were evident in 60% and sperm counts were reduced in 37%. looks like they didnt compare the same participants before and after, so this seems like a poor way to measure anything.

Arnt 5y ago
Well, I don't know much about donating semen, but it doesn't seem outrageous that the semen quality of donors might be monitored, such that old data is available to be compared against new. Or do you actually know that this isn't the case?
- refurb 5y ago
  Where does it state they were prior donors? I had the same thought - they must have a “before” to compare to.
  - Arnt 5y ago
    Uhm… I think that's something I assumed when I saw that they cited sperm counts for only 35 men in a study with over two hundred thousand participants. Thinking about it now: Even if there are only 100,000 men, it seems implausible that only 35 of 100,000 would be able and willing to wank for the progress of science and the benefit of mankind. So there must be some other condition, some strict other condition.

irthomasthomas 5y ago

South Africa had it first. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/#graph-deaths-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri... And, as expected, it appears to be far less harmful than Delta, which was less harmful than the original novel cov2. This is how a virus evolves, it gets weaker, which allows it to spread faster. Dead people don't spread viruses. It looks from the data that we are finally at the end of this pandemic.

pibechorro 5y ago
Almost as if natural immunity was the answer all along..
- ckdarby 5y ago
  At the cost of millions of lives. People tend to forget that and skip over what they're proposing is the death of millions.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I don't take sides in this crazy divisive topic but please don't ignore that no small amount of people died almost immediately after getting the vaccine as well. Some smaller countries (or districts) also reported higher deaths of the vaccines themselves compared to Covid -- which isn't solid data to go by but it's still quite an interesting data point. Your argument should go both ways for it to be objective. --- EDIT: And of course I immediately regret posting in a Covid thread. Even just trying to say there are shades of gray and I get immediately labelled and flagged. Enjoy your echo chamber, guys. What an extremist age we are living in. :( This was my last ever time I will be posting in any such thread (not only on HN). You won. Do sleep soundly knowing that there won't be any critical thinking process involved. Hope that "scientific" approach makes you happy.
    - _kulang 5y ago
      They reported lower deaths from COVID vs. vaccines because they didn't have rampant COVID but also had high vaccination rates, it really was that simple, and it is damaging (and strictly incorrect) to discuss this 'data point' without the appropriate context. Because of this, the vaccine looks like an 'unnecessary risk' until you start getting major outbreaks. And calling this a 'divisive topic' lends too much credence to anti-vax dogma

deburo 5y ago

Considering the previous extraordinary claim that it may be less severe, I would’ve like a breakdown of the reported population, and numbers for the hospitalization rate even if it’s similar to delta.

xyzzy21 5y ago

This occurs for the same reason the spike protein "spikes" in the ovaries: the epithelial receptors for ACE2 and in the ovaries and in placentas are also present in the testes. BTW Nicki Manaj was correct about her cousin!

penjelly 5y ago

> For vaccines available in the UK, effectiveness against symptomatic Omicron infection ranged from 0% to 20% after two doses, and from 55% to 80% following a booster dose how does this make any sense? a booster is the same as the original vaccine, the only reason i can see this making any sense is if the vaccine effectiveness was waning over time and everyone who they tested had been 6+ months since their 2 doses edit: it appears they measure antibody titers as a means of determining whether youll get symptoms or not. I find it strange that the goalpost is now avoiding "symptomatic infection" instead of "severe desease". Cold symptoms are symptoms but they arent anything to worry about typically?

tester89 5y ago
At least in this test https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-provide-update-omicron-variant https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta... they did account for that, which does suggest that 3 doses are in fact better than 2 without the waning effect. > The sera were collected from subjects 3 weeks after receiving the second dose or one month after receiving the third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
jlokier 5y ago
The doses do not all set your immune system to the same state, despite being the same substance. The subsequent doses cause further evolution within the body to broaden the spectrum of its response. This is why there were two doses in the first place, on a schedule, instead of one dose. The sequence is more like a progressive immune system training program than a one-off health powerup like you'd get in a video game. Omicron is close enough that the figures show a significant effect after the third dose compared with the second. It was not something which could be assumed, because the response curve depends on details of the virus, so the recent data is good news. However the scientists had enough understanding of the details, and Omicron spreads so fast with unknown consequences at this time, that it was worth rolling out the booster soon after Omicron was detected. It is a popular misconception that each vaccine sets a simple "immunity %" stat, and that the booster simply resets that stat after it wanes. It's an easy idea to explain, but the immune processes are more subtle than that. Perhaps we need some of that subtlety to be better known now, so that people understand why the booster sequence is useful. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59639973.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59639973.amp

parasense 5y ago

> lowers sperm count Alas! We can probably have an interesting conversation about evolution, adaptation, and fitness for survival. Besides the obvious potential for lower population growth, how does a lower sperm count of any entire set of generations impact the future species, and society?

Madmallard 5y ago

Who is telling the truth? I’ve seen multiple youtube MDs bring up studies that claim the infections are typically milder than previous covid strains. These publications are on public news outlets but I do not know how they are vetted for credibility nor do I know the credibility of the research they’re citing. In more than one recent example the CDC was described by Zdogg MD and Vinay Prasad, who are definitely competent and credible presenters of medical information, to be utilizing really crappy data and sometimes even flat out saying things that are wrong. I really hate this information war environment surrounding covid. You actually cannot know the truth it seems.