7 ms·

Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. The best part is even the an

by zaroth 5y ago

Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. The best part is even the anti-vax crowd will be innoculated!

fpgaminer 5y ago
> Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. Hospitals are getting overloaded due to Omicron. People are dying in droves. Omicron is by no means mild. "Omicron may be milder compared to Delta, but it’s not mild. " Source: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-24 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa...
- native_samples 5y ago
  Where? In the UK hospitals are quiet for this time of year (less than 80% loaded which for the UK is quiet), and deaths are below the 5 year running average.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    UK has somewhat decent (50%) booster uptake
    - OnlyMortal 5y ago
      More than 50% https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/4BCA/production/_122920491_optimised-vaccine_doses_nation_with_booster_20jan-nc.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/4BCA/production/...
    - iso1210 5y ago
      64.3% currently. 83.9% have had 2 doses.
  - fpgaminer 5y ago
    In the U.S. at least: > There are two states and 618 counties that require circuit breakers (i.e. short-term mitigation measures needed to preserve hospital functioning) at this point because their hospitals are at or above 100% capacity (assuming that the number of staffed beds has not increased in the past week). Medical military personnel have already been dispatched to a number of hospitals across the nation. Nebraska also joined a short list of states that have enacted its Crisis Standards of Care plan. But community-wide efforts to reduce spread desperately need to be taken, too. Fourteen additional states are at high risk of exceeding 100% hospital capacity in the next 1-10 days. Source: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-18 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa...
    - jbirer 5y ago
      Americans also have higher dates of obesity and diabetes though so it doesn't surprise me.
    - encoderer 5y ago
      It’s mild. Everybody is getting it and that strains hospitals but it’s a mild illness and many infected people won’t even be tested let alone seek treatment. How much evidence do you need of this being a mild variant?
      - fivea 5y ago
        > It’s mild. Everybody is getting it and that strains hospitals but it’s a mild illness and many infected people won’t even be tested let alone seek treatment. It really is not. It's mild to double- and triple-vaccinated individuals living in highly vaccinated populations. They get the shot, they brush it aside The poor souls who didn't managed to get vaccinated, or didn't wanted to, represent the bulk of the hospitalized population and deaths. The key factor is that the world has spent the last year bulking on vaccines, precisely to allow any infection to be at most mild. And now that we're seeing highly vaccinated populations being exposed and developing mostly mild cases are we now supposed to pretend that vaccines don't exist and the disease suddenly got tame? In whose head does this even compute?
  - Closi 5y ago
    In the UK our healthcare system is overloaded though because of 2 years of lockdown policy postponing any elective surgeries. You are right on your figures though - when you look at excess deaths over 5 years there has been much fewer deaths because of Covid than the official figures would have you believe, but the impact of lockdown will be felt for many years to come.
    - native_samples 5y ago
      It is both overloaded and not working at full capacity simultaneously, due to chaotic and foolish rules.
  - kurthr 5y ago
    It would appear that a country that is over 90% vaccinated and 60% boosted is having ~440 deaths a day with roughly 15k admitted to the hospital (ignoring simple ER visits) that week. It's worth noting that the 10% unvaccinated (even though skewed younger) are ~5x overrepresented at ~50% of the hospitalizations. It's about half as high as the peak last Jan although ventilators are less in use and treatments are better. From your dashboard: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
    - kurthr 5y ago
      Actually, now I'm intrigued. It would appear that the total annual death rate in the UK is about 135k/yr or 370/day. So the last couple of weeks of the current Omicron wave exceeds the typical average death rate from all causes from 2010-2018 (scaled for population). https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/leadingcausesofdeathuk/2001to2018 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
      - MikeAmelung 5y ago
        Close, you're only off by ~465,000
    - iso1210 5y ago
      Pre covid, the UK typically had 1400 deaths a day in the winter. It's a little higher at the moment, but nowhere near 400. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048504/Weekly_report_mortality__W3.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Be careful about who is in covid because of non-covid reasons that just happen to have covid, compared with those who are in hospital because of covid.
      - kurthr 5y ago
        Did you look at that plot on page 2? Choosing what certainly looks like a single dramatic outlier point which is 2 weeks older than the dashboard certainly seems like cherry picking. Just look at the current dashboard data it shows ~440 deaths per day for the last 2 weeks. Again: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Also note that there almost aren't deaths from other flus over the last 2 years, likely because they don't have an R value >1 due to masking etc. Look, I'm all for getting back to normal and letting the unvaccinated (and old, poor, sick) die off as god intended, but let's not pretend it's all due to a lack of joyful evenings in the pub.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Do you have a link to UK hospitalisation figures?
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    True, and thank goodness, but also because hospitals kicked out everyone they could ahead of the wave. In a “normal” winter there would be more regular patients in the hospitals.
- prvc 5y ago
  I don't see what the supporting evidence for that conclusion is in the article.
  - ygjb 5y ago
    It doesn't. The refrain that Omicron is "mild" is being parroted by people who don't understand what they are talking about. In fact, the Omicron variant (like other COVID variants) is relatively mild among individuals who have been vaccinated. That hasn't stopped the vast majority of folks yeeting themselves off a dunning-kruger cliff and assuming that they are competent to discuss the topic because they read a medical journal or an opinion piece that aligns well with their own perceptions of COVID and the broad spectrum of economic, political, and medical topics (myself included sometimes).
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      It’s mild relative to other variants for everyone. However, it is still quite dangerous for unvaccinated individuals… CFR is not that high but it is extremely contagious, so it is still killing a lot of unvaccinated people.
      - tinus_hn 5y ago
        It was mild in South Africa as well, where there really is not a high vaccination rate.
        tablespoon 5y ago
        > It was mild in South Africa as well, where there really is not a high vaccination rate. That's not the only variable. IIRC, South Africa's population is on-average much younger, less obese, and much more likely to have had a previous infection compared to America's.
        tinus_hn 5y ago
        All these factors would have applied to the other variants the same.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I think Omicron is almost universally mild for those who have had the existing vaccines. And as most people have (here in the UK anyway), I can understand why people are seeing it as mild.
  - ygjb 5y ago
    There is an ocean of difference between "it's mild because I am vaccinated" and "it's mild", and the bridge across it is being built on the mental and physical well being of our health care providers around the world.
    - fivea 5y ago
      I'd add that it's extremely disingenuous to hide the fact that high vaccination rates are the sole reason why the same disease spreading like wildfire is not leaving a trail of dead bodies stacked high on it's wake.
- ripper1138 5y ago
  The data in the article makes a pretty compelling argument that Omicron is extremely mild.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    what surprises me is to see how Germany, despite the low number in comparison with the other countries, has capitulated in almost all areas.
  - obmelvin 5y ago
    I mean...it's possible for something to be both significantly less bad than something worse and also still pretty shitty.
- cma 5y ago
  Even if it was as mild as flu, with its much higher rate of spread hospitals would probably still be seeing a big surge.
- nradov 5y ago
  A lot of the deaths occurring right now are still from patients that were infected by the Delta variant weeks ago. Preliminary research indicates that Omicron has an 87% lower fatality rate. Of course that number is a little fuzzy because it's impossible to perform a real controlled experiment. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4010080 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4010080
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Preliminary research indicates that Omicron has an 87% lower fatality rate. 1. 87% less of a lot isn't a little. It can still be a lot. 2. "Fatality rate" isn't a number that just floats in the air by itself. It's a factor in the equation deaths = case_count * fatality_rate, and the case_count term has skyrocketed. 3. Deaths aren't the only thing to worry about. Hospitalizations that don't result in a fatality are nothing to sneeze at. Ditto for other kinds of bad outcomes. Where's the concern about COVID-caused myocarditis?
    - nevermindiguess 5y ago
      There’s no way of winning with those like you. You just like the drama of the pandemic too much and want it to stay forever. Even if it killed 1 person a year globally, those like you would probably argue that “even one life is infinitely precious and we should be on lockdown to save it”. Perhaps you feel this is your opportunity of a lifetime to be righteous. Honestly, I am so fed up with so many of you around that I have been hoping for a global nuclear Armageddon between Russia and the USA just to shut all of you up. Don’t forget to wear your mask when you look at the strange bright light in the sky.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > There’s no way of winning with those like you. You just like the drama of the pandemic too much and want it to stay forever....Honestly, I am so fed up with so many of you around that I have been hoping for a global nuclear Armageddon between Russia and the USA just to shut all of you up. I'm sorry, but it seems you're complaining about a straw man that lives only in your head. Also, there are much easier and more effective ways to deal with things like that than wishing for a nuclear war. Thanks for your comment, though. It felt nice to read it for reasons you almost certainly didn't intend.
rgrieselhuber 5y ago
Natural immunity, what a concept!
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  As opposed to artificial immunity?
  - rgrieselhuber 5y ago
    Not sure immunity is what I'd call it but, artificial, yes.
    - yladiz 5y ago
      What?
    - flatiron 5y ago
      Maybe “artificially evoked natural immunity”?
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      By what mechanism do you think vaccines work. Magic?
  - pcbro141 5y ago
    Natural immunity is acquired from exposure to the disease organism through infection with the actual disease. Vaccine-induced immunity is acquired through the introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm
    - qbasic_forever 5y ago
      None of the COVID vaccines in use by the western world use an attenuated virus. The mRNA vaccines were specifically built and engineered to not have many of the pitfalls and issues of attenuated vaccines. The vaccines only contain a synthetic spike protein (or instructions how to make it) which is used to stimulate antibodies against it.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms For some, but hardly guaranteed. Still a lot of hospitalizations happening and the extreme treatments have to be rationed because we’re running out so fast. The thing is: You don’t get to choose or predict if you’ll get the mild case or the severe case. You can’t ignore the serious cases and make your decisions on the assumption that you’ll be in the “no long term effects” group. The vaccine is a much more predictable and tested response. I’d much rather have the vaccine.
ethbr0 5y ago
Once the lethality data started to accumulate, I had the same thought. Even though it's still definitely not something you want to get, especially if you have comorbidities. It's insane to think about, but as our biological engineering skills mature, it's worth having a discussion about whether (1) mass vaccination + (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. There are no sure things in biology, but a hypothetical reality where Delta (or god forbid something like MERS-CoV) is circulating with Omicron-rates of transmissibility... start to beg questions about what the least bad approach is.
- chasd00 5y ago
  > (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. political and ethical suicide
  - mercy_dude 5y ago
    > release of highly contagious Yet when China does it (accidentally or not) it’s considered unthinkable for our political class. If you think people in Washington couldn’t be less worried about their electorates. If anything COVID has been a boon to hide their massive incompetence diverting discussions around mandates, vaccinations and other woke virtue signaling.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Political suicide, certainly. Ethically — assuming such engineering is even possible without unexpected consequences — it sounds like a trolley problem, only instead of 6 on the default track and 1 on the alternate it might be 6 million by default and 1 million with the airborne cowpox analogy. (Numbers completely made up, of course).
    - chasd00 5y ago
      performing a medical experiment/procedure on someone against their will is unethical.
samwillis 5y ago
I don’t think that is fully confirmed as so many people who are getting it are double or triple vaccinated already. (I currently have Covid, probably Omicron, triple vaxed, and would describe it as a rotten cold)
qbasic_forever 5y ago
Wait, didn't people make this exact same argument about the alpha variant (B.1.1.7) that had a massive worldwide surge around this time a year ago? What happened--why did we go on to have delta, omicron, etc. surges? Or put more bluntly--why should anyone believe that *this time* omicron will be any different than the past variants which were touted as finally bringing herd immunity, but failed to do so? Why is it that every surge seems to bring the exact same arguments and people saying "don't worry this one will stop the pandemic"? I've been reading it for two years and still haven't seen it happen anywhere in the world.
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  I don’t buy Omicron will be the one ending this. There will be more variants. Midterm variant will be a very good one to watch out for. Our political class have figured it’s much easier to defer judgements or lack thereof to scientists and thus take no responsibility for failed policy measures or debates.
groby_b 5y ago
Just one country as an example: The US lost 15K people last week to Omicron. 150K people hospitalized, 25K in the ICU. That's nowhere close to "mild to non-existent" compared to a vaccine.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  As a point of comparison too about 690k Americans die of heart disease a year, or a rate of about 13k deaths from heart disease a week. Currently the 'mild' omicron strain of the virus is killing more people per week than the number one killer of Americans (heart disease). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Usurping the top spot for causes of death in a week is not mild by any means.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > The US lost 15K people last week to Omicron. Bullshit. There is no data to suggest all of those deaths were from omicron, and no reason to believe that's the case either. Don't spread misinformation.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    Take your argument up with the New York Times, their death tracker is showing that ~15k people have died from COVID in the last 7 days: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html Count up the daily counts yourself and check. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have provided no evidence that 15k, as reported by one of the most reputable new organizations in the world, is wrong or should be considered misinformation.
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      I'm not debating the Covid death number. You specifically called out omicron, while none of the actual data does so. There's no data (that I'm aware of) breaking out the US deaths by variant.
- 5y ago
Ourgon 5y ago
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  You are making an argument against vaccination. Ergo, you are speaking anti-vaccination rhetoric. You are an anti-vaxxer. QED
  - Ourgon 5y ago
    You write short sentences. Ergo, you are using childish language. You are a child. QED?
guelo 5y ago
The biggest logical fallacy I've noticed during the pandemic is people making definitive statements like yours while the science remains uncertain and changing. I don't know how much weight to put on this news snippet from yesterday from a Dutch scientist saying they're seeing people that got infected with Omicron getting reinfected with new Omicron subvariant BA.2: https://nyheder.tv2.dk/2022-01-21-ny-omikron-variant-spreder-sig-du-kan-muligvis-blive-smittet-to-gange-siger-ssi-forsker https://nyheder.tv2.dk/2022-01-21-ny-omikron-variant-spreder...
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  I always ask myself when someone makes a definitive statement if they actually have a way of knowing that. That detector has been off the charts this whole pandemic. The usual suspects proclaimed Omicron was 'mild' whatever that actually means well before any data was available to show either way. It's looking more and more like Omicron isn't mild. In particular it's producing worse infections in children. Not to mention it's immune escape means it's infecting vaccinated people. Mild infection in vaccinated people vs no infection in vaccinated people as you had with other variants.
tablespoon 5y ago
> Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. > The best part is even the anti-vax crowd will be innoculated! I don't think it's anything close to "highly attenuated": https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/25/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests/omicron-infections-lead-to-fewer-hospitalizations-than-delta-a-cdc-report-finds https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/25/world/omicron-covid-... > The C.D.C. attributed the tendency of Omicron cases to cause less severe illness to the virus itself, as well as growing levels of immunity from prior infections and from the rollout of vaccinations. It said that roughly 30 million more people were fully vaccinated during the Omicron surge than during the Delta wave in the fall. > As a result, a smaller proportion of coronavirus cases are ending in hospitalizations: The C.D.C. said there had been a peak of 27 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases in January, compared with 78 admissions per 1,000 cases in the fall. If it were "highly attenuated," I'd expect close to 0 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases, not 27. Exaggerating "less severe" to "near harmless" is one of those errors anti-vax people and other denialists commonly make in their arguments.
fivea 5y ago
> Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. No, not really. Fully vaccinated individuals in highly vaccinated populations who contract covid tend to experience mild to non-existent symptoms. Omicron is not a vaccine. The vaccine is the vaccine. https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/pages/news/news/2022/01/the-omicron-variant-sorting-fact-from-myth https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies...

by zaroth 5y ago

Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. The best part is even the anti-vax crowd will be innoculated!

fpgaminer 5y ago

> Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. Hospitals are getting overloaded due to Omicron. People are dying in droves. Omicron is by no means mild. "Omicron may be milder compared to Delta, but it’s not mild. " Source: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-24 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa...

native_samples 5y ago
Where? In the UK hospitals are quiet for this time of year (less than 80% loaded which for the UK is quiet), and deaths are below the 5 year running average.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  UK has somewhat decent (50%) booster uptake
  - OnlyMortal 5y ago
    More than 50% https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/4BCA/production/_122920491_optimised-vaccine_doses_nation_with_booster_20jan-nc.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/4BCA/production/...
  - iso1210 5y ago
    64.3% currently. 83.9% have had 2 doses.
- fpgaminer 5y ago
  In the U.S. at least: > There are two states and 618 counties that require circuit breakers (i.e. short-term mitigation measures needed to preserve hospital functioning) at this point because their hospitals are at or above 100% capacity (assuming that the number of staffed beds has not increased in the past week). Medical military personnel have already been dispatched to a number of hospitals across the nation. Nebraska also joined a short list of states that have enacted its Crisis Standards of Care plan. But community-wide efforts to reduce spread desperately need to be taken, too. Fourteen additional states are at high risk of exceeding 100% hospital capacity in the next 1-10 days. Source: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-18 https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affa...
  - jbirer 5y ago
    Americans also have higher dates of obesity and diabetes though so it doesn't surprise me.
  - encoderer 5y ago
    It’s mild. Everybody is getting it and that strains hospitals but it’s a mild illness and many infected people won’t even be tested let alone seek treatment. How much evidence do you need of this being a mild variant?
    - fivea 5y ago
      > It’s mild. Everybody is getting it and that strains hospitals but it’s a mild illness and many infected people won’t even be tested let alone seek treatment. It really is not. It's mild to double- and triple-vaccinated individuals living in highly vaccinated populations. They get the shot, they brush it aside The poor souls who didn't managed to get vaccinated, or didn't wanted to, represent the bulk of the hospitalized population and deaths. The key factor is that the world has spent the last year bulking on vaccines, precisely to allow any infection to be at most mild. And now that we're seeing highly vaccinated populations being exposed and developing mostly mild cases are we now supposed to pretend that vaccines don't exist and the disease suddenly got tame? In whose head does this even compute?
- Closi 5y ago
  In the UK our healthcare system is overloaded though because of 2 years of lockdown policy postponing any elective surgeries. You are right on your figures though - when you look at excess deaths over 5 years there has been much fewer deaths because of Covid than the official figures would have you believe, but the impact of lockdown will be felt for many years to come.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    It is both overloaded and not working at full capacity simultaneously, due to chaotic and foolish rules.
- kurthr 5y ago
  It would appear that a country that is over 90% vaccinated and 60% boosted is having ~440 deaths a day with roughly 15k admitted to the hospital (ignoring simple ER visits) that week. It's worth noting that the 10% unvaccinated (even though skewed younger) are ~5x overrepresented at ~50% of the hospitalizations. It's about half as high as the peak last Jan although ventilators are less in use and treatments are better. From your dashboard: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
  - kurthr 5y ago
    Actually, now I'm intrigued. It would appear that the total annual death rate in the UK is about 135k/yr or 370/day. So the last couple of weeks of the current Omicron wave exceeds the typical average death rate from all causes from 2010-2018 (scaled for population). https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/leadingcausesofdeathuk/2001to2018 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
    - MikeAmelung 5y ago
      Close, you're only off by ~465,000
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Pre covid, the UK typically had 1400 deaths a day in the winter. It's a little higher at the moment, but nowhere near 400. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048504/Weekly_report_mortality__W3.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Be careful about who is in covid because of non-covid reasons that just happen to have covid, compared with those who are in hospital because of covid.
    - kurthr 5y ago
      Did you look at that plot on page 2? Choosing what certainly looks like a single dramatic outlier point which is 2 weeks older than the dashboard certainly seems like cherry picking. Just look at the current dashboard data it shows ~440 deaths per day for the last 2 weeks. Again: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Also note that there almost aren't deaths from other flus over the last 2 years, likely because they don't have an R value >1 due to masking etc. Look, I'm all for getting back to normal and letting the unvaccinated (and old, poor, sick) die off as god intended, but let's not pretend it's all due to a lack of joyful evenings in the pub.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Do you have a link to UK hospitalisation figures?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  True, and thank goodness, but also because hospitals kicked out everyone they could ahead of the wave. In a “normal” winter there would be more regular patients in the hospitals.
prvc 5y ago
I don't see what the supporting evidence for that conclusion is in the article.
- ygjb 5y ago
  It doesn't. The refrain that Omicron is "mild" is being parroted by people who don't understand what they are talking about. In fact, the Omicron variant (like other COVID variants) is relatively mild among individuals who have been vaccinated. That hasn't stopped the vast majority of folks yeeting themselves off a dunning-kruger cliff and assuming that they are competent to discuss the topic because they read a medical journal or an opinion piece that aligns well with their own perceptions of COVID and the broad spectrum of economic, political, and medical topics (myself included sometimes).
  - xadhominemx 5y ago
    It’s mild relative to other variants for everyone. However, it is still quite dangerous for unvaccinated individuals… CFR is not that high but it is extremely contagious, so it is still killing a lot of unvaccinated people.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      It was mild in South Africa as well, where there really is not a high vaccination rate.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > It was mild in South Africa as well, where there really is not a high vaccination rate. That's not the only variable. IIRC, South Africa's population is on-average much younger, less obese, and much more likely to have had a previous infection compared to America's.
        tinus_hn 5y ago
        All these factors would have applied to the other variants the same.
nicoburns 5y ago
I think Omicron is almost universally mild for those who have had the existing vaccines. And as most people have (here in the UK anyway), I can understand why people are seeing it as mild.
- ygjb 5y ago
  There is an ocean of difference between "it's mild because I am vaccinated" and "it's mild", and the bridge across it is being built on the mental and physical well being of our health care providers around the world.
  - fivea 5y ago
    I'd add that it's extremely disingenuous to hide the fact that high vaccination rates are the sole reason why the same disease spreading like wildfire is not leaving a trail of dead bodies stacked high on it's wake.
ripper1138 5y ago
The data in the article makes a pretty compelling argument that Omicron is extremely mild.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  what surprises me is to see how Germany, despite the low number in comparison with the other countries, has capitulated in almost all areas.
- obmelvin 5y ago
  I mean...it's possible for something to be both significantly less bad than something worse and also still pretty shitty.
cma 5y ago
Even if it was as mild as flu, with its much higher rate of spread hospitals would probably still be seeing a big surge.
nradov 5y ago
A lot of the deaths occurring right now are still from patients that were infected by the Delta variant weeks ago. Preliminary research indicates that Omicron has an 87% lower fatality rate. Of course that number is a little fuzzy because it's impossible to perform a real controlled experiment. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4010080 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4010080
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Preliminary research indicates that Omicron has an 87% lower fatality rate. 1. 87% less of a lot isn't a little. It can still be a lot. 2. "Fatality rate" isn't a number that just floats in the air by itself. It's a factor in the equation deaths = case_count * fatality_rate, and the case_count term has skyrocketed. 3. Deaths aren't the only thing to worry about. Hospitalizations that don't result in a fatality are nothing to sneeze at. Ditto for other kinds of bad outcomes. Where's the concern about COVID-caused myocarditis?
  - nevermindiguess 5y ago
    There’s no way of winning with those like you. You just like the drama of the pandemic too much and want it to stay forever. Even if it killed 1 person a year globally, those like you would probably argue that “even one life is infinitely precious and we should be on lockdown to save it”. Perhaps you feel this is your opportunity of a lifetime to be righteous. Honestly, I am so fed up with so many of you around that I have been hoping for a global nuclear Armageddon between Russia and the USA just to shut all of you up. Don’t forget to wear your mask when you look at the strange bright light in the sky.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > There’s no way of winning with those like you. You just like the drama of the pandemic too much and want it to stay forever....Honestly, I am so fed up with so many of you around that I have been hoping for a global nuclear Armageddon between Russia and the USA just to shut all of you up. I'm sorry, but it seems you're complaining about a straw man that lives only in your head. Also, there are much easier and more effective ways to deal with things like that than wishing for a nuclear war. Thanks for your comment, though. It felt nice to read it for reasons you almost certainly didn't intend.

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

Natural immunity, what a concept!

NikolaeVarius 5y ago
As opposed to artificial immunity?
- rgrieselhuber 5y ago
  Not sure immunity is what I'd call it but, artificial, yes.
  - yladiz 5y ago
    What?
  - flatiron 5y ago
    Maybe “artificially evoked natural immunity”?
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    By what mechanism do you think vaccines work. Magic?
- pcbro141 5y ago
  Natural immunity is acquired from exposure to the disease organism through infection with the actual disease. Vaccine-induced immunity is acquired through the introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    None of the COVID vaccines in use by the western world use an attenuated virus. The mRNA vaccines were specifically built and engineered to not have many of the pitfalls and issues of attenuated vaccines. The vaccines only contain a synthetic spike protein (or instructions how to make it) which is used to stimulate antibodies against it.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms For some, but hardly guaranteed. Still a lot of hospitalizations happening and the extreme treatments have to be rationed because we’re running out so fast. The thing is: You don’t get to choose or predict if you’ll get the mild case or the severe case. You can’t ignore the serious cases and make your decisions on the assumption that you’ll be in the “no long term effects” group. The vaccine is a much more predictable and tested response. I’d much rather have the vaccine.

ethbr0 5y ago

Once the lethality data started to accumulate, I had the same thought. Even though it's still definitely not something you want to get, especially if you have comorbidities. It's insane to think about, but as our biological engineering skills mature, it's worth having a discussion about whether (1) mass vaccination + (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. There are no sure things in biology, but a hypothetical reality where Delta (or god forbid something like MERS-CoV) is circulating with Omicron-rates of transmissibility... start to beg questions about what the least bad approach is.

chasd00 5y ago
> (2) release of highly-contagious, low-lethality strain should be in the pandemic playbook. political and ethical suicide
- mercy_dude 5y ago
  > release of highly contagious Yet when China does it (accidentally or not) it’s considered unthinkable for our political class. If you think people in Washington couldn’t be less worried about their electorates. If anything COVID has been a boon to hide their massive incompetence diverting discussions around mandates, vaccinations and other woke virtue signaling.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Political suicide, certainly. Ethically — assuming such engineering is even possible without unexpected consequences — it sounds like a trolley problem, only instead of 6 on the default track and 1 on the alternate it might be 6 million by default and 1 million with the airborne cowpox analogy. (Numbers completely made up, of course).
  - chasd00 5y ago
    performing a medical experiment/procedure on someone against their will is unethical.

samwillis 5y ago

I don’t think that is fully confirmed as so many people who are getting it are double or triple vaccinated already. (I currently have Covid, probably Omicron, triple vaxed, and would describe it as a rotten cold)

qbasic_forever 5y ago

Wait, didn't people make this exact same argument about the alpha variant (B.1.1.7) that had a massive worldwide surge around this time a year ago? What happened--why did we go on to have delta, omicron, etc. surges? Or put more bluntly--why should anyone believe that *this time* omicron will be any different than the past variants which were touted as finally bringing herd immunity, but failed to do so? Why is it that every surge seems to bring the exact same arguments and people saying "don't worry this one will stop the pandemic"? I've been reading it for two years and still haven't seen it happen anywhere in the world.

mercy_dude 5y ago
I don’t buy Omicron will be the one ending this. There will be more variants. Midterm variant will be a very good one to watch out for. Our political class have figured it’s much easier to defer judgements or lack thereof to scientists and thus take no responsibility for failed policy measures or debates.

groby_b 5y ago

Just one country as an example: The US lost 15K people last week to Omicron. 150K people hospitalized, 25K in the ICU. That's nowhere close to "mild to non-existent" compared to a vaccine.

qbasic_forever 5y ago
As a point of comparison too about 690k Americans die of heart disease a year, or a rate of about 13k deaths from heart disease a week. Currently the 'mild' omicron strain of the virus is killing more people per week than the number one killer of Americans (heart disease). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm Usurping the top spot for causes of death in a week is not mild by any means.
jaywalk 5y ago
> The US lost 15K people last week to Omicron. Bullshit. There is no data to suggest all of those deaths were from omicron, and no reason to believe that's the case either. Don't spread misinformation.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Take your argument up with the New York Times, their death tracker is showing that ~15k people have died from COVID in the last 7 days: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html Count up the daily counts yourself and check. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have provided no evidence that 15k, as reported by one of the most reputable new organizations in the world, is wrong or should be considered misinformation.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    I'm not debating the Covid death number. You specifically called out omicron, while none of the actual data does so. There's no data (that I'm aware of) breaking out the US deaths by variant.
5y ago

Ourgon 5y ago

qbasic_forever 5y ago
You are making an argument against vaccination. Ergo, you are speaking anti-vaccination rhetoric. You are an anti-vaxxer. QED
- Ourgon 5y ago
  You write short sentences. Ergo, you are using childish language. You are a child. QED?

guelo 5y ago

The biggest logical fallacy I've noticed during the pandemic is people making definitive statements like yours while the science remains uncertain and changing. I don't know how much weight to put on this news snippet from yesterday from a Dutch scientist saying they're seeing people that got infected with Omicron getting reinfected with new Omicron subvariant BA.2: https://nyheder.tv2.dk/2022-01-21-ny-omikron-variant-spreder-sig-du-kan-muligvis-blive-smittet-to-gange-siger-ssi-forsker https://nyheder.tv2.dk/2022-01-21-ny-omikron-variant-spreder...

Gibbon1 5y ago
I always ask myself when someone makes a definitive statement if they actually have a way of knowing that. That detector has been off the charts this whole pandemic. The usual suspects proclaimed Omicron was 'mild' whatever that actually means well before any data was available to show either way. It's looking more and more like Omicron isn't mild. In particular it's producing worse infections in children. Not to mention it's immune escape means it's infecting vaccinated people. Mild infection in vaccinated people vs no infection in vaccinated people as you had with other variants.

tablespoon 5y ago

> Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. > The best part is even the anti-vax crowd will be innoculated! I don't think it's anything close to "highly attenuated": https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/25/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests/omicron-infections-lead-to-fewer-hospitalizations-than-delta-a-cdc-report-finds https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/25/world/omicron-covid-... > The C.D.C. attributed the tendency of Omicron cases to cause less severe illness to the virus itself, as well as growing levels of immunity from prior infections and from the rollout of vaccinations. It said that roughly 30 million more people were fully vaccinated during the Omicron surge than during the Delta wave in the fall. > As a result, a smaller proportion of coronavirus cases are ending in hospitalizations: The C.D.C. said there had been a peak of 27 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases in January, compared with 78 admissions per 1,000 cases in the fall. If it were "highly attenuated," I'd expect close to 0 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases, not 27. Exaggerating "less severe" to "near harmless" is one of those errors anti-vax people and other denialists commonly make in their arguments.

fivea 5y ago

> Seems to me that Omicron is essentially a vaccine in its own right. Highly attenuated and extremely mild to non-existent symptoms. No, not really. Fully vaccinated individuals in highly vaccinated populations who contract covid tend to experience mild to non-existent symptoms. Omicron is not a vaccine. The vaccine is the vaccine. https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/pages/news/news/2022/01/the-omicron-variant-sorting-fact-from-myth https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies...