7 ms·

South Africa had it first. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/#graph-deaths-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country

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
    - rsfern 5y ago
      This is a very strong claim to make without supporting evidence that the vaccines directly caused or contributed to the cause of these deaths.
      - pdimitar 5y ago
        Same as claiming that Covid caused a lot of deaths when doctors in my country have been caught writing off car crash victims as Covid deaths, en masse, several times in a row over the course of months? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I try to keep an open mind and observe objectively. Both "camps" have their pretty wild claims and at this point in time it's more of a religious war than anything else. That's what an average guy like me is seeing. But feel free to keep citing the need for supporting evidence in an age where there are strong financial incentives to take one of the sides in this debate.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        HelloMcFly 5y ago
        > Same as claiming that Covid caused a lot of deaths when doctors in my country have been caught writing off car crash victims as Covid deaths > But feel free to keep citing the need for supporting evidence in an age where there are strong financial incentives to take one of the sides in this debate I can't speak to anything about your country or your experiences, but you've used an absolutely non-falsifiable (+ ludicrously non-scalable) anecdote as your "counter-argument" or whatever, while simultaneously denigrating the validity of any real supporting evidence that anyone might show. You call this a "debate" - what room have you left? Can I provide stats on the highly-monitored vaccine distribution in the US regarding death? Yes, sure (.0022%). But to what end? When you also claim: > No small amount of people died immediately after getting the vaccine." What is "not a small amount", I guess? Percentage-wise, 0.0022% sure seems small. Hell, maybe it's 50x worse than that in reality, which would still be just around 1/10th of a single percent! But, again, how can we have a conversation when you yourself refuse to provide any evidence for your beliefs, and pre-dismiss all other evidence due to financial incentives? None, as far as I can tell.
penjelly 5y ago
im optimistic about this as well but it hasnt been long enough to tell for sure. Theres a lag in contracting the virus and death occurring, south africa is at its case peak right now so we need to wait a couple weeks and see if deaths follow. That and we need to see if Omicron truly outcompetes other variants, in the UK they have both delta and omicron for now. That said, I believe we would be seeing higher rate of hospitalizations if this were as dangerous as the other variants.
- funcDropShadow 5y ago
  You rightly noted that deaths occur a few weeks after contraction of the virus, and hospitalization usually somewhere between those two dates. So the hospitalization curve also follows the infection curve with a delay. Therefore, hospitalization might still go up. The following argument is often completely ignored, even if Omicron hospitalizes only half as many percent of infected people as Delta, it will reach the same absolute number of hospital patients one doubling period later, which is around two to three days later for most countries. I.e. it doesn't matter for the question whether public health systems collapse if you don't stop the wave of infections.
funcDropShadow 5y ago
You said: > And, as expected, it appears to be far less harmful than Delta And the title said: > Omicron infections appear no less severe than Delta Hmm, somethings doesn't seem right? I assume you misread the title. > This is how a virus evolves, it gets weaker, which allows it to spread faster. Dead people don't spread viruses. Yes, viruses usually evolve to transmit better and the host and virus usually co-evolve to a less severe disease. But, this applies only to viruses that transmit after people get symptoms. If people spread the virus first for a few days and then get sick, there is no inherent evolutionary pressure to select for less severe virus variants. Even the original SarsCovII virus (let's say Wuhan variant) had already the capability to spread before symptom onset as well as after. So it is unclear, how this evolves further.
- pa7x1 5y ago
  Thanks for highlighting the co-evolution aspect. I find it more likely that for viruses with a pre-symptomatic phase is the selective pressure caused by the virus on the host that ends up resulting in lower severity long term. By simply removing genes from the genepool that were particularly prone to complications. With a pre-symptomatic phase the selective pressure on the virus is towards more infectivity and longer pre-symptomatic phase. Not necessarily towards milder outcomes.
- mikem170 5y ago
  The title of the current article doesn't change the numbers from South Africa indicating that Omicron puts 80% less people in hospitals than Delta: > Early data from the South African health ministry released last week found that only 1.7% of cases in the latest wave have resulted in hospitalizations so far, compared with 18% at the same point during the previous wave, which was dominated by the Delta variant. [0] Their methodology also seems better than that used for the U.K. numbers in the article, which compared all past cases to current Omicron cases. I personally think that's a more complex comparison, with perhaps more room for confounding factors. I assume the U.K. numbers are a week or two behind the numbers from South Africa. I assume more numbers will be forthcoming in another couple/few weeks, along with early numbers from more countries. Time will tell. The post you replied to also mentioned that coronaviruses often evolve to be weaker because that helps them spread. I've seen experts say the same. You said: > this applies only to viruses that transmit after people get symptoms Are you saying that Covid-19 does not transmit after the onset of symptoms? Do you have a reference supporting that? I found sources saying that Covid-19 may be transmissible starting two days before the onset of symptoms, but nothing saying that it stops when symptoms start. I found the CDC saying to isolate at least 10 days after symptom onset [1]. I would assume that those days of symptoms would be the optimal time to transmit a virus, such as when coughing, running, and sneezing. Are you saying that Covid-19 is only spread asymptomatically? [0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-africas-drop-daily-covid-141453555.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-africas-drop-daily-covid-14... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isolation.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isola...
wcoenen 5y ago
A less harmful variant was hoped for, based on the initial data from South Africa for Omicron. However, the demographics and history of infections in South Africa are different from other countries, so this wasn't certain. Data and research on what is happening outside South Africa was needed. Now Reuters is reporting on that research, and the results indicate that the initial hope was false. It doesn't make sense to then go back and point at South Africa to contradict the news. I guess you can disagree with the research conclusions, but then you need to critique the study methodology instead of just pointing at South Africa.
rsfern 5y ago
What? Omicron aside, Delta was more harmful than the original wild type, not less. More severe, higher rate of hospitalization and mortality.
- refurb 5y ago
  Do you have a source on that? My understanding is it was more transmissible, and suspected to be more severe but there was no hard data.
  - fivea 5y ago
    CDC's FAQ on the delta variant mentions it "might cause more severe illness than previous variants in unvaccinated people." Also quoted from CDC's FAQ: > "In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus that causes COVID-19." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var...
  - rsfern 5y ago
    This summary from august points to a couple studies that support the general 2x hospitalization rate in unvaccinated delta patients. Honestly I wasn’t aware that there was this much uncertainty at the time, I remember hearing that delta was affecting young people in India more strongly way back in early 2021 https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/08/421171/how-dangerous-delta-variant-heres-what-science-says https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/08/421171/how-dangerous-delta...
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Case Fatality Rate = ~0.3% Delta vs ~1.9% Original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    It doesn't work like that. Delta and original existed at different times. Testing was way more advanced this year than last. So you would expect a larger denominator.
johnchristopher 5y ago
> 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. Yeah, no. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-five-times-more-likely-reinfect-than-delta-study-says-2021-12-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Check declining rate of hospitalization vs. Cases in Denmark, US, UK and Canada. It's not just south Africa anymore. Eg. https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-epidemic/covid-19-updates-statistics-and-charts https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-epide.... I'm aware of today's deaths = 13. But this could still be the result of delta or an anomaly ( will follow up tomorrow and the rest of the week) Fyi, Reuters COVID tracker is really nice! Unfortunately it tracks deaths and not hospitalisations, but that seems to be declining too: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/denmark/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...
  - jlokier 5y ago
    Reported death rate is currently increasing in the UK, and so are hospitalisations. The reported ratio of detected cases to deaths is reducing, but this what you would expect during the rapid spreading phase, because of the long time lag between detected cases and eventual death. We have to wait a few more weeks to find out what the true ratio is in the UK. It will emerge into statistical significance gradually, because some people die sooner than others, so expect a trickle of stories with varying shades of speculation. Unfortunately data on Long Covid is harder to come by, and this is just as concerning due to the high case numbers, and the way it severely affects people while tending to be under-reported and undiagnosed.
    - NicoJuicy 5y ago

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
  - rsfern 5y ago
    This is a very strong claim to make without supporting evidence that the vaccines directly caused or contributed to the cause of these deaths.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      Same as claiming that Covid caused a lot of deaths when doctors in my country have been caught writing off car crash victims as Covid deaths, en masse, several times in a row over the course of months? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I try to keep an open mind and observe objectively. Both "camps" have their pretty wild claims and at this point in time it's more of a religious war than anything else. That's what an average guy like me is seeing. But feel free to keep citing the need for supporting evidence in an age where there are strong financial incentives to take one of the sides in this debate.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - HelloMcFly 5y ago
        > Same as claiming that Covid caused a lot of deaths when doctors in my country have been caught writing off car crash victims as Covid deaths > But feel free to keep citing the need for supporting evidence in an age where there are strong financial incentives to take one of the sides in this debate I can't speak to anything about your country or your experiences, but you've used an absolutely non-falsifiable (+ ludicrously non-scalable) anecdote as your "counter-argument" or whatever, while simultaneously denigrating the validity of any real supporting evidence that anyone might show. You call this a "debate" - what room have you left? Can I provide stats on the highly-monitored vaccine distribution in the US regarding death? Yes, sure (.0022%). But to what end? When you also claim: > No small amount of people died immediately after getting the vaccine." What is "not a small amount", I guess? Percentage-wise, 0.0022% sure seems small. Hell, maybe it's 50x worse than that in reality, which would still be just around 1/10th of a single percent! But, again, how can we have a conversation when you yourself refuse to provide any evidence for your beliefs, and pre-dismiss all other evidence due to financial incentives? None, as far as I can tell.

penjelly 5y ago

im optimistic about this as well but it hasnt been long enough to tell for sure. Theres a lag in contracting the virus and death occurring, south africa is at its case peak right now so we need to wait a couple weeks and see if deaths follow. That and we need to see if Omicron truly outcompetes other variants, in the UK they have both delta and omicron for now. That said, I believe we would be seeing higher rate of hospitalizations if this were as dangerous as the other variants.

funcDropShadow 5y ago
You rightly noted that deaths occur a few weeks after contraction of the virus, and hospitalization usually somewhere between those two dates. So the hospitalization curve also follows the infection curve with a delay. Therefore, hospitalization might still go up. The following argument is often completely ignored, even if Omicron hospitalizes only half as many percent of infected people as Delta, it will reach the same absolute number of hospital patients one doubling period later, which is around two to three days later for most countries. I.e. it doesn't matter for the question whether public health systems collapse if you don't stop the wave of infections.

funcDropShadow 5y ago

You said: > And, as expected, it appears to be far less harmful than Delta And the title said: > Omicron infections appear no less severe than Delta Hmm, somethings doesn't seem right? I assume you misread the title. > This is how a virus evolves, it gets weaker, which allows it to spread faster. Dead people don't spread viruses. Yes, viruses usually evolve to transmit better and the host and virus usually co-evolve to a less severe disease. But, this applies only to viruses that transmit after people get symptoms. If people spread the virus first for a few days and then get sick, there is no inherent evolutionary pressure to select for less severe virus variants. Even the original SarsCovII virus (let's say Wuhan variant) had already the capability to spread before symptom onset as well as after. So it is unclear, how this evolves further.

pa7x1 5y ago
Thanks for highlighting the co-evolution aspect. I find it more likely that for viruses with a pre-symptomatic phase is the selective pressure caused by the virus on the host that ends up resulting in lower severity long term. By simply removing genes from the genepool that were particularly prone to complications. With a pre-symptomatic phase the selective pressure on the virus is towards more infectivity and longer pre-symptomatic phase. Not necessarily towards milder outcomes.
mikem170 5y ago
The title of the current article doesn't change the numbers from South Africa indicating that Omicron puts 80% less people in hospitals than Delta: > Early data from the South African health ministry released last week found that only 1.7% of cases in the latest wave have resulted in hospitalizations so far, compared with 18% at the same point during the previous wave, which was dominated by the Delta variant. [0] Their methodology also seems better than that used for the U.K. numbers in the article, which compared all past cases to current Omicron cases. I personally think that's a more complex comparison, with perhaps more room for confounding factors. I assume the U.K. numbers are a week or two behind the numbers from South Africa. I assume more numbers will be forthcoming in another couple/few weeks, along with early numbers from more countries. Time will tell. The post you replied to also mentioned that coronaviruses often evolve to be weaker because that helps them spread. I've seen experts say the same. You said: > this applies only to viruses that transmit after people get symptoms Are you saying that Covid-19 does not transmit after the onset of symptoms? Do you have a reference supporting that? I found sources saying that Covid-19 may be transmissible starting two days before the onset of symptoms, but nothing saying that it stops when symptoms start. I found the CDC saying to isolate at least 10 days after symptom onset [1]. I would assume that those days of symptoms would be the optimal time to transmit a virus, such as when coughing, running, and sneezing. Are you saying that Covid-19 is only spread asymptomatically? [0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-africas-drop-daily-covid-141453555.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-africas-drop-daily-covid-14... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isolation.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isola...

wcoenen 5y ago

A less harmful variant was hoped for, based on the initial data from South Africa for Omicron. However, the demographics and history of infections in South Africa are different from other countries, so this wasn't certain. Data and research on what is happening outside South Africa was needed. Now Reuters is reporting on that research, and the results indicate that the initial hope was false. It doesn't make sense to then go back and point at South Africa to contradict the news. I guess you can disagree with the research conclusions, but then you need to critique the study methodology instead of just pointing at South Africa.

rsfern 5y ago

What? Omicron aside, Delta was more harmful than the original wild type, not less. More severe, higher rate of hospitalization and mortality.

refurb 5y ago
Do you have a source on that? My understanding is it was more transmissible, and suspected to be more severe but there was no hard data.
- fivea 5y ago
  CDC's FAQ on the delta variant mentions it "might cause more severe illness than previous variants in unvaccinated people." Also quoted from CDC's FAQ: > "In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus that causes COVID-19." https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-var...
- rsfern 5y ago
  This summary from august points to a couple studies that support the general 2x hospitalization rate in unvaccinated delta patients. Honestly I wasn’t aware that there was this much uncertainty at the time, I remember hearing that delta was affecting young people in India more strongly way back in early 2021 https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/08/421171/how-dangerous-delta-variant-heres-what-science-says https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/08/421171/how-dangerous-delta...
irthomasthomas 5y ago
Case Fatality Rate = ~0.3% Delta vs ~1.9% Original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Delta_variant
- zarzavat 5y ago
  It doesn't work like that. Delta and original existed at different times. Testing was way more advanced this year than last. So you would expect a larger denominator.

johnchristopher 5y ago

> 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. Yeah, no. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-five-times-more-likely-reinfect-than-delta-study-says-2021-12-17/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

NicoJuicy 5y ago
Check declining rate of hospitalization vs. Cases in Denmark, US, UK and Canada. It's not just south Africa anymore. Eg. https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-epidemic/covid-19-updates-statistics-and-charts https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-epide.... I'm aware of today's deaths = 13. But this could still be the result of delta or an anomaly ( will follow up tomorrow and the rest of the week) Fyi, Reuters COVID tracker is really nice! Unfortunately it tracks deaths and not hospitalisations, but that seems to be declining too: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/denmark/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...
- jlokier 5y ago
  Reported death rate is currently increasing in the UK, and so are hospitalisations. The reported ratio of detected cases to deaths is reducing, but this what you would expect during the rapid spreading phase, because of the long time lag between detected cases and eventual death. We have to wait a few more weeks to find out what the true ratio is in the UK. It will emerge into statistical significance gradually, because some people die sooner than others, so expect a trickle of stories with varying shades of speculation. Unfortunately data on Long Covid is harder to come by, and this is just as concerning due to the high case numbers, and the way it severely affects people while tending to be under-reported and undiagnosed.
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago