5 ms·

If Omicron turns out to have better health outcomes than Delta, even with the increased transmissibility, will we see countries welcoming Omicron-infected trave

by vosper 5y ago

If Omicron turns out to have better health outcomes than Delta, even with the increased transmissibility, will we see countries welcoming Omicron-infected travelers so that it might spread and out-compete Delta? Omicron is coming either way.

nikolay 5y ago
You forget the biggest issue with a highly-contagious RNA virus - the more people it infects, the more mutations we'll see!
- vosper 5y ago
  True, but everyone's going to get exposed to Omicron anyway, unless something more even transmissible takes it's place. So, why not skip straight to Omicron and maybe have better health outcomes by eliminating Delta?
  - nikolay 5y ago
    Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. So far, we have less than 300M infected on record with 5.3M dead. The real numbers are probably 5 times higher, i.e. a lot of people will die. Also, with the immune escape, those 300M are not greatly protected either.
    - johnisgood 5y ago
      > Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. What gives? Many countries have >80% vaccination rate (doubled vaccinated). Actually, where are we expecting these dead bodies to be, and why? If we answer that, maybe we can solve it.
      - nikolay 5y ago
        I can only admire your Christmas spirit!
        johnisgood 5y ago
        Huh? Sigh... I suppose you misunderstood it.
    - vosper 5y ago
      I’m talking about a scenario where Omicron is strictly “better” than Delta. Why would that necessarily lead to more dead people than we’d get with Delta?
      - bilalnpe 5y ago
        If it's faster spreading, it could "overwhelm the healthcare system" in areas where Delta would have been manageable.
        vosper 5y ago
        But again, that’s not the scenario I’m talking about > If Omicron turns out to have better health outcomes than Delta, even with the increased transmissibility
        srean 5y ago
        The problem is that sentence is still too vague. If you make a more quantitative statement it would be easier to engage with. Requiring hospitalization but 10X higher probability compared to delta for surviving hospitalization can be described as "to have better health outcomes than Delta". But if transmissibility is higher it can still overwhelm the hospital infrastructure and cause more deaths by making beds a scarce commodity not only for those affected by covid but also others who need a hospitalization bed. Note that a multiplicative factor reduction in the probability of surviving, becomes just a time shift during exponential growth phase of the spread. With a doubling rate of 2 days, a 1/16 factor is a delay of 8 days. It shifts the curve, does not flatten it, at least not at the off-peak regime.
        listenallyall 5y ago
        Does anyone actually still buy into the "overwhelm the health system" narrative? I mean, that was the original reasoning for initiating lockdowns (two weeks to stop the spread, flatten the curve) and it's repeatedly been threatened but never actually come to fruition. Indeed, healthcare workers are busy, dedicated and hard-working, and I'm sure they would like Covid to end, but the idea that scores of people are dying untreated because hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid cases seems not to have ever materialized. (Except maybe NY under Cuomo's watch)
    - noxer 5y ago
      >Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. That implies there are tens of million dead bodies already but there aren't. There are maybe a few millions at most. From which only a part it accrual excess death and from that only a part is excess death that actually reduced average age below life expectancy by a signification margin i.e. shortened the life by several month. If the virus would go away now we should see less death in the coming years which further diminishes the actual effect. Just to put in in perspective there may be 5 million COVID associated deaths in a time frame (~2 years) where 120 million death are expected And 280 million new people are expect to have been born (unclear if COVID has a positive or negative effect on this number). Needless to say COVID does not even make a dent in the growth of the global population. It may slow growth down by like 1-2% that means 2 years of COVID made the global population lag behind is a few days compared to no COVID.
      - kapilvt 5y ago
        Excess deaths estimates are in excess of 10million. Ie totals of 18.4 with 95 confidence.. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
        noxer 5y ago
        Thats still not "tens of millions" and a huge portion of these will be caused by the measurement done in the name of fighting COVID. Either way smoking has killed more people each year for many years now than COVID + all pandemic related excess death in one year together. That should give a context of how minuscule it is on a global scale. Like we are still an order of magnitudes away from making the global population stop growing. If you know a person who died due to COVID and everyone you know also know a person who died due to COVID then everyone subjectively things many many people died but most people know 100+ people and every person who dies was know by many people so in reality only a fraction of a percent of all people would need to die for this to be statically true.
- postalrat 5y ago
  Wouldn't there be fewer mutation if everyone gets infected fast with a similar virus? Versus mutations building up while people are infected slowly. Basically a wide tree of infections vs. a deep one.
  - nikolay 5y ago
    Mutations happen all the time at each replication - within a single individual as well; they just get propagated with every newly infected person.
    - postalrat 5y ago
      So wouldn't they build up less if everyone is infected with the same strain? And not the strain after 100 previous infections.
      - noxer 5y ago
        Yes because if everyone has variant A and variant A provides some kind of immunity to variant B then there will be less reproduction of B and therefore the chance of mutation becomes lower even if B infect everyone at the same time too. But this is only true if you expect both A and B to reach everyone eventually. Currently we expect that a lot people never had any variant and therefore no mutation could happen in these people. But if they get it all eventually then it just delays mutation.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    No.
    - postalrat 5y ago
      Yes
efficax 5y ago
Omicron will become the dominate strain worldwide without anything so insane as that
- vosper 5y ago
  Why is it insane?
  - efficax 5y ago
    deliberately encouraging infection is almost a kind of murder...
    - johnisgood 5y ago
      Depends. I know coughs can kill, but it is pretty unlikely.
kochikame 5y ago
That's morally indefensible. Millions of people worldwide will die from omicron as you reach herd immunity. No one can deliberately choose to do that.
- vosper 5y ago
  I’m not talking about trying to achieve herd immunity, though. I’m wondering if countries (maybe just the well-vaccinated ones?) might prefer Omicron to Delta given that they’ve all got Delta and are all going to get Omicron eventually.
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  The big scary omnicron boogie monster is coming and you can’t stop it from coming. We can fight it or Why not let it come, especially if your country has high vaccination rates, so it spreads rather than the delta variant. Or do what I do shrug and assume some vaccinated person will have almost no symptoms and they will spread it to the unvaccinated like me, and then I’ll either get a cold or die. At least us unvaccinated are more likely to know we have the sickness and will stay home. All these vaccinated folk probably have it and are just spreading it because the vaccine protects them from symptoms. Lol - I’m probably not going to be able to sell the story that the vaccinated are the dirty ones huh?
  - gromitss 5y ago
    So if everyone was vaccinated almost no one would die? What’s your point?
    - mostertoaster 5y ago
      That we don’t need mask mandates, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or any restrictions to anything regarding covid, other than maybe an insistence that you stay home if you feel sick. (And sure because flying already sucks require a covid test and a flu test to fly)
  - MrMan 5y ago

by vosper 5y ago

nikolay 5y ago

You forget the biggest issue with a highly-contagious RNA virus - the more people it infects, the more mutations we'll see!

vosper 5y ago
True, but everyone's going to get exposed to Omicron anyway, unless something more even transmissible takes it's place. So, why not skip straight to Omicron and maybe have better health outcomes by eliminating Delta?
- nikolay 5y ago
  Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. So far, we have less than 300M infected on record with 5.3M dead. The real numbers are probably 5 times higher, i.e. a lot of people will die. Also, with the immune escape, those 300M are not greatly protected either.
  - johnisgood 5y ago
    > Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. What gives? Many countries have >80% vaccination rate (doubled vaccinated). Actually, where are we expecting these dead bodies to be, and why? If we answer that, maybe we can solve it.
    - nikolay 5y ago
      I can only admire your Christmas spirit!
      - johnisgood 5y ago
        Huh? Sigh... I suppose you misunderstood it.
  - vosper 5y ago
    I’m talking about a scenario where Omicron is strictly “better” than Delta. Why would that necessarily lead to more dead people than we’d get with Delta?
    - bilalnpe 5y ago
      If it's faster spreading, it could "overwhelm the healthcare system" in areas where Delta would have been manageable.
      - vosper 5y ago
        But again, that’s not the scenario I’m talking about > If Omicron turns out to have better health outcomes than Delta, even with the increased transmissibility
        srean 5y ago
        The problem is that sentence is still too vague. If you make a more quantitative statement it would be easier to engage with. Requiring hospitalization but 10X higher probability compared to delta for surviving hospitalization can be described as "to have better health outcomes than Delta". But if transmissibility is higher it can still overwhelm the hospital infrastructure and cause more deaths by making beds a scarce commodity not only for those affected by covid but also others who need a hospitalization bed. Note that a multiplicative factor reduction in the probability of surviving, becomes just a time shift during exponential growth phase of the spread. With a doubling rate of 2 days, a 1/16 factor is a delay of 8 days. It shifts the curve, does not flatten it, at least not at the off-peak regime.
      - listenallyall 5y ago
        Does anyone actually still buy into the "overwhelm the health system" narrative? I mean, that was the original reasoning for initiating lockdowns (two weeks to stop the spread, flatten the curve) and it's repeatedly been threatened but never actually come to fruition. Indeed, healthcare workers are busy, dedicated and hard-working, and I'm sure they would like Covid to end, but the idea that scores of people are dying untreated because hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid cases seems not to have ever materialized. (Except maybe NY under Cuomo's watch)
  - noxer 5y ago
    >Because this means tens of millions of more dead bodies. That implies there are tens of million dead bodies already but there aren't. There are maybe a few millions at most. From which only a part it accrual excess death and from that only a part is excess death that actually reduced average age below life expectancy by a signification margin i.e. shortened the life by several month. If the virus would go away now we should see less death in the coming years which further diminishes the actual effect. Just to put in in perspective there may be 5 million COVID associated deaths in a time frame (~2 years) where 120 million death are expected And 280 million new people are expect to have been born (unclear if COVID has a positive or negative effect on this number). Needless to say COVID does not even make a dent in the growth of the global population. It may slow growth down by like 1-2% that means 2 years of COVID made the global population lag behind is a few days compared to no COVID.
    - kapilvt 5y ago
      Excess deaths estimates are in excess of 10million. Ie totals of 18.4 with 95 confidence.. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
      - noxer 5y ago
        Thats still not "tens of millions" and a huge portion of these will be caused by the measurement done in the name of fighting COVID. Either way smoking has killed more people each year for many years now than COVID + all pandemic related excess death in one year together. That should give a context of how minuscule it is on a global scale. Like we are still an order of magnitudes away from making the global population stop growing. If you know a person who died due to COVID and everyone you know also know a person who died due to COVID then everyone subjectively things many many people died but most people know 100+ people and every person who dies was know by many people so in reality only a fraction of a percent of all people would need to die for this to be statically true.
postalrat 5y ago
Wouldn't there be fewer mutation if everyone gets infected fast with a similar virus? Versus mutations building up while people are infected slowly. Basically a wide tree of infections vs. a deep one.
- nikolay 5y ago
  Mutations happen all the time at each replication - within a single individual as well; they just get propagated with every newly infected person.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    So wouldn't they build up less if everyone is infected with the same strain? And not the strain after 100 previous infections.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Yes because if everyone has variant A and variant A provides some kind of immunity to variant B then there will be less reproduction of B and therefore the chance of mutation becomes lower even if B infect everyone at the same time too. But this is only true if you expect both A and B to reach everyone eventually. Currently we expect that a lot people never had any variant and therefore no mutation could happen in these people. But if they get it all eventually then it just delays mutation.
- sjg007 5y ago
  No.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    Yes

efficax 5y ago

Omicron will become the dominate strain worldwide without anything so insane as that

vosper 5y ago
Why is it insane?
- efficax 5y ago
  deliberately encouraging infection is almost a kind of murder...
  - johnisgood 5y ago
    Depends. I know coughs can kill, but it is pretty unlikely.

kochikame 5y ago

That's morally indefensible. Millions of people worldwide will die from omicron as you reach herd immunity. No one can deliberately choose to do that.

vosper 5y ago
I’m not talking about trying to achieve herd immunity, though. I’m wondering if countries (maybe just the well-vaccinated ones?) might prefer Omicron to Delta given that they’ve all got Delta and are all going to get Omicron eventually.
mostertoaster 5y ago
The big scary omnicron boogie monster is coming and you can’t stop it from coming. We can fight it or Why not let it come, especially if your country has high vaccination rates, so it spreads rather than the delta variant. Or do what I do shrug and assume some vaccinated person will have almost no symptoms and they will spread it to the unvaccinated like me, and then I’ll either get a cold or die. At least us unvaccinated are more likely to know we have the sickness and will stay home. All these vaccinated folk probably have it and are just spreading it because the vaccine protects them from symptoms. Lol - I’m probably not going to be able to sell the story that the vaccinated are the dirty ones huh?
- gromitss 5y ago
  So if everyone was vaccinated almost no one would die? What’s your point?
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    That we don’t need mask mandates, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or any restrictions to anything regarding covid, other than maybe an insistence that you stay home if you feel sick. (And sure because flying already sucks require a covid test and a flu test to fly)
- MrMan 5y ago