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I remember when people said that about alpha, and then delta, and now omicron... When is it going to happen? The UK convinced itself alpha would give them her

I remember when people said that about alpha, and then delta, and now omicron... When is it going to happen? The UK convinced itself alpha would give them herd immunity and stop future outbreaks. Then the same people came out to say ok now with delta in the UK we'll let it burn all summer and then be protected. And now the same people have the gall to say, ok ok this time omicron will be the one that gives us herd immunity. It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit nonsense that it is.

nickff 5y ago
>"It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit nonsense that it is. " This is not helpful. I understand that you disagree with the parent, but you could have ended your comment on a more constructive and helpful note.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  20 millions people worldwide are estimated to be dead so far in 2 years of this virus pandemic. It's time to call out the minimizers and downplayers on their horseshit.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >"It's time to call out the minimizers and downplayers on their horseshit. " Maybe it's time to do that on Reddit or Facebook, but this isn't the point of HackerNews. From the guidelines: >" Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "
- outside1234 5y ago
  For what its worth, I took this as an attack on the idea and the parent themselves as a person.
Robotbeat 5y ago
So there were high degrees of heard immunity… but then Omicron came which has pretty high immune escape, and so it spreads all over, whether you were vaccinated or not, had COVID before or not. And then it finds those who were neither vaccinated nor previously had COVID and puts them in the hospital. Spreads so quickly that the hospital system is overloaded even if the Case Hospitalization Rate isn’t that high. So it’s gonna expose everyone regardless, therefore it is a kind of herd exposure, if not herd immunity. Hopefully, in combination with the previous exposure, the transmissibility will be lowered by this “herd exposure” so in future waves the hospital system won’t be hit as hard. It’s roughly less than half as lethal as Delta, other things being equal. In combination with boosted+vaccination, the risk is pretty low, comparable to flu or perhaps lower now that we have better treatments. We need the pan-coronavirus vaccines, though, in addition to these less lethal variants, to really bring this down to background seasonal flu/cold virus levels. (And it wouldn’t hurt if we finally fixed the HIV pandemic so variants don’t mutate so much. And fix vaccine logistics further so we have a prayer to deploy vaccines before literally everyone gets it like Omicron.) Coronaviruses normally don’t mutate as fast as the typical seasonal flu since they don’t do recombination as efficiently. So we SHOULD be able to keep up with it. But our main vaccine strain is now 2 years old. You can’t expect that to work well forever.
TeeMassive 5y ago
> It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit nonsense that it is. Having non-stop sanitary edicts and booster shots every three months is not really a long-term sustainable policy either.
- pm90 5y ago
  Actually it is, and the boosters came in every 6 months. Getting to a high (like over 95%) vaccination worldwide would also prevent the creation of more variants. There are quite clearly solutions that will work; what lacks is political will (and disinformation spread by selfish people and politicians).
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > Getting to a high (like over 95%) vaccination worldwide would also prevent the creation of more variants. Maybe if we're getting a vaccine that provides immunity like the Polio one does and that we're vaccinating 100% of people in a few days and we're getting rid of all animal reservoirs of the virus at the same time, which is just near impossible given the cost and the logistics, maybe the virus could be eradicated. Maybe. Also it is environmental pressures that drive viruses to mutate and create variants. If the virus escapes the vaccines than there is a great deal of change that it is the vaccinated that favored the vaccine resistant strains. In fact one of the first most contagious strains were noticed in India a few weeks after the beginning of their vaccination program. It is impossible to say what causes a mutation to arise, but to say that it is 100% sure that the non-vaccinated are responsible for the variants is simply based on nothing tangible.
    - pm90 5y ago
      I don’t think you’re making any cogent points or actually refuting what I said.
      - TeeMassive 5y ago
        It's ironic given that you're doing exactly that.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
If you look at the data on hospitalizations in the UK, you see that the suffering really was much greater during alpha: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  And? Where was the herd immunity after it?
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
    The hospitalization rate per case is way down. IMO, we can largely credit that to immunity (from both vaccination and prior infections). Severe cases are much less common on breakthroughs. That’s consistent with the earlier comment that covid-19 will become more like the flu. It’ll become one of the many endemic respiratory viruses. Usually not severe, because everyone’s been exposed before.
    - qbasic_forever 5y ago
      That's not at all what herd immunity means. It means there are no more infections because there's a base level of immunity all around you. It's how people that are immunocompromised or unable to be vaccinated/protected (i.e. children) are spared by the virus.
      - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
        Oh sure, I don’t think complete herd immunity is a reasonable goal for this virus. The immunity isn’t persistent enough to achieve that. The GP’s description of it as an endemic we live with like the flu seems more plausible.
      - nradov 5y ago
        This virus is sufficiently contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect. Everyone will eventually be exposed. This is inevitable. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu... https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

nickff 5y ago

>"It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit nonsense that it is. " This is not helpful. I understand that you disagree with the parent, but you could have ended your comment on a more constructive and helpful note.

qbasic_forever 5y ago
20 millions people worldwide are estimated to be dead so far in 2 years of this virus pandemic. It's time to call out the minimizers and downplayers on their horseshit.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"It's time to call out the minimizers and downplayers on their horseshit. " Maybe it's time to do that on Reddit or Facebook, but this isn't the point of HackerNews. From the guidelines: >" Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "
outside1234 5y ago
For what its worth, I took this as an attack on the idea and the parent themselves as a person.

Robotbeat 5y ago

So there were high degrees of heard immunity… but then Omicron came which has pretty high immune escape, and so it spreads all over, whether you were vaccinated or not, had COVID before or not. And then it finds those who were neither vaccinated nor previously had COVID and puts them in the hospital. Spreads so quickly that the hospital system is overloaded even if the Case Hospitalization Rate isn’t that high. So it’s gonna expose everyone regardless, therefore it is a kind of herd exposure, if not herd immunity. Hopefully, in combination with the previous exposure, the transmissibility will be lowered by this “herd exposure” so in future waves the hospital system won’t be hit as hard. It’s roughly less than half as lethal as Delta, other things being equal. In combination with boosted+vaccination, the risk is pretty low, comparable to flu or perhaps lower now that we have better treatments. We need the pan-coronavirus vaccines, though, in addition to these less lethal variants, to really bring this down to background seasonal flu/cold virus levels. (And it wouldn’t hurt if we finally fixed the HIV pandemic so variants don’t mutate so much. And fix vaccine logistics further so we have a prayer to deploy vaccines before literally everyone gets it like Omicron.) Coronaviruses normally don’t mutate as fast as the typical seasonal flu since they don’t do recombination as efficiently. So we SHOULD be able to keep up with it. But our main vaccine strain is now 2 years old. You can’t expect that to work well forever.

TeeMassive 5y ago

> It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit nonsense that it is. Having non-stop sanitary edicts and booster shots every three months is not really a long-term sustainable policy either.

pm90 5y ago
Actually it is, and the boosters came in every 6 months. Getting to a high (like over 95%) vaccination worldwide would also prevent the creation of more variants. There are quite clearly solutions that will work; what lacks is political will (and disinformation spread by selfish people and politicians).
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  > Getting to a high (like over 95%) vaccination worldwide would also prevent the creation of more variants. Maybe if we're getting a vaccine that provides immunity like the Polio one does and that we're vaccinating 100% of people in a few days and we're getting rid of all animal reservoirs of the virus at the same time, which is just near impossible given the cost and the logistics, maybe the virus could be eradicated. Maybe. Also it is environmental pressures that drive viruses to mutate and create variants. If the virus escapes the vaccines than there is a great deal of change that it is the vaccinated that favored the vaccine resistant strains. In fact one of the first most contagious strains were noticed in India a few weeks after the beginning of their vaccination program. It is impossible to say what causes a mutation to arise, but to say that it is 100% sure that the non-vaccinated are responsible for the variants is simply based on nothing tangible.
  - pm90 5y ago
    I don’t think you’re making any cogent points or actually refuting what I said.
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      It's ironic given that you're doing exactly that.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago

If you look at the data on hospitalizations in the UK, you see that the suffering really was much greater during alpha: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions

qbasic_forever 5y ago
And? Where was the herd immunity after it?
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  The hospitalization rate per case is way down. IMO, we can largely credit that to immunity (from both vaccination and prior infections). Severe cases are much less common on breakthroughs. That’s consistent with the earlier comment that covid-19 will become more like the flu. It’ll become one of the many endemic respiratory viruses. Usually not severe, because everyone’s been exposed before.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    That's not at all what herd immunity means. It means there are no more infections because there's a base level of immunity all around you. It's how people that are immunocompromised or unable to be vaccinated/protected (i.e. children) are spared by the virus.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
      Oh sure, I don’t think complete herd immunity is a reasonable goal for this virus. The immunity isn’t persistent enough to achieve that. The GP’s description of it as an endemic we live with like the flu seems more plausible.
    - nradov 5y ago
      This virus is sufficiently contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect. Everyone will eventually be exposed. This is inevitable. https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immunity-not-possible-astrazeneca-developer-2021-8?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu... https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646