'No Evidence' That Omicron is Less Severe Than Delta, Say Imperial Researchers (reuters.com) 348
There is at present "no evidence" that the Omicron coronavirus variant is any less severe than the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London, which also highlighted the elevated risk of reinfection posed by Omicron and the need for booster shots to combat it. From a report: The research, based on UK infection data, casts doubt on the hopes of some experts that a change in the virulence of the new variant would ease the pressure on health systems despite Omicron's high levels of infectiousness. "The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection," said the research team, led by Professor Neil Ferguson, an infectious disease modeller and government science adviser. However, they cautioned that hospitalisation data "remains very limited at this time." The study said data suggested "at most, limited changes in severity compared with Delta." Early reports from medics in South Africa's Gauteng province, the centre of the Omicron outbreak there, had raised hopes that the variant's mutations might have led to a change in the virus' biology causing it to be less severe.
Cuts both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
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"There is no evidence" is a fucking nothingburger. It asserts nothing. Take a big bite of air and enjoy.
When you have sufficient data, that IS "evidence that omicron is no less severe than delta", a demonstrated pattern.
I'm not interested in diving whatever agendas are at play here, because this bullshit goes way further back than that. It's old and I'm sick of it. At best, someone babbling about "there's no evidence" asserts that other assertions should be scrutinized, that we are as yet unsure, agnostic.
Re:Cuts both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
>At best, someone babbling about "there's no evidence" asserts that other assertions should be scrutinized, that we are as yet unsure, agnostic. "i dunno lol."
Exactly
So long as we don't know, and there are many people claiming we *do* know, it's important that prominent voices speak out saying "We don't know yet". Otherwise by the time we really do know, the masses may already be convinced of a falsehood.
That's especially dangerous when the (potential) falsehood is "it's less/not dangerous", and thus promotes widespread reckless behavior.
No reason to change behaviour (Score:5, Informative)
Continue wearing a mask, avoid crowds, don't travel, socially distance and wash your hands like it's spring 2020.
Re:No reason to change behaviour (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No reason to change behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue for adding masking with a good N95 mask to your daily life. Omicron is demonstrably more infectious, severity of infection is TBD as is the incidence of long Covid. However it's not just about you. It's good that you're keeping up-to-date in the vaccinations. You are ahead of a huge number of people in this world. Masking is essential to keep from infecting other people should you be unlucky enough to have a breakthrough infection with omicron.
vaccines, boosters, and masks are what's required to keep other people from getting sick and you getting sick from them.
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Just curious where you live where people are still wearing masks?
Same question for you.
I live in Chicago and we have been on a mask mandate since August. I teach in a mask, too.
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Things may look normal on the surface but if you know anyone in the medical field, it's clear that the fire is burning out of sight of most peop
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Just curious where you live where people are still wearing masks?
For me, South Florida. Most people wear masks indoors (supermarkets, etc.) Ballet theaters and other highbrow establishments are gearing themselves up for Christmas events, and most of them (if not all) are requiring people to wear masks and bring proof of vaccination or recent COVID test.
Mind you, there is a non-trivial number of people who just don't wear masks indoors (and those are the ones that will, sooner or later, help breed new variants.)
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It's funny that most of this pro-virus bullshit on this site comes from you and your army of sock accounts.
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I'm in BC, the mask mandate came back late this summer after it was removed and hospitalizations went way up, almost all unvaccinated but there's 10% unvaccinated (not including kids) and 10% of 5 million is still half a million, enough to overwhelm the healthcare system. The neighbouring Province declared the pandemic over this summer, ICU usage went up to close to 200% and now the number of people who are dying from what was treatable disease like cancer or heart problems is way up due to the surgery canc
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The real problem is that anti-vaxx nutjobs aren't dying fast enough.
Your bullshit has killed a lot of people. People I care about. if you can't be bothered to get vaccinated, and least shut the fuck up.
Re: No reason to change behaviour (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to have the lowest infection rates when you fire scientists who refuse to manipulate the data [beckershos...review.com] to make your state look better than it is, hide healthcare worker infection and death rates from covid [beckershos...review.com] to nudge your numbers even lower, blatangly fuck around with the data to make things look better and refuse to release data under the premise that it's confidential, even though it was not confidential for at least a year prior and no laws changed to make it confidential. [nbcmiami.com]
Add to that the fact that Florida has done DNA sequencing on less than 0.01% of cases (about 2800 since the pandemic began) and it starts sounding a lot like Florida might just be using every loophole they can find to suggest that covid isn't a problem.
But a governor who spent the first few months of the pandemic completely denying that it was spreading wouldn't do that, would he?
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Sorry, but you'll never be normal.
What people mean when they say this is, "Let me go back to my Wall-E sled!"
What they don't realize is that they still have their teevee. Nothing changed.
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The report you're commenting on came to the conclusion that past infection is only 19% protective in this wave. Getting infected before doesn't mean you won't get infected now. Getting infected now doesn't mean you won't get infected later. And each infection is a new chance to create the mutations that set off the next wave. Oh, and FYI: Regeneron basically doesn't work anymore, and Molnupiravir and Pax
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Screwing around? What precisely do you think is "screwing around". Mutations will happen, it is what viruses do.
Also, I've consulted the Cosmic Normalcy Guide, it turns out there is no rule that says Normalcy must return. Yes, I know, it seems odd but there you go.
Re:No reason to change behaviour (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point I just consider having a mask on in public, is like having a jacket, or keeping your shoes on.
While the vaccinations are extremely effective, you are still at risk, and if you are at risk you could be spreading to other people who may not be vaccinated or can take more risk.
I don't care if you catch COVID, I don't care if you get better, I don't care if you Die from it. But I do care that you had spread it to perhaps hundreds of other people while you were infectious and didn't have symptoms.
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I have to wonder if all this screwing around is doing nothing but dragging this on and on endlessly, with mutation after wave after mutation.
We are where we are because a lot of yokels don't wear masks and don't get vaccinated (plus, it is a global pandemic that generates new mutations as it hits different regions of the world at different times.
Sure, at some point the world will return to normal. A lot of people who rushed "to normal" ain't around to see how and when things go back to normal. It was understandable in 2020. But in 2021, I don't get it.
I, for one, will keep getting my vaccines. On top of that, I will just follow the example f
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You realize "Fuck that" is how we get mutation after mutation, right?
More people saying "fuck that" -> more people infected -> more opportunities for mutation
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Slow down the infection rate so that better vaccines and treatments can be developed, and which will also slow down the mutation rate so that those treatments and vaccines remain effective.
You know, Public Heath 101 stuff.
What's your plan? It appears to be "I don't think I'll die, so fuck everyone"
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Dang. I was really hoping to get back to kiss-hellos and my hobby of licking door knobs.
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I dunno where you live, but no one around here has been doing any of that since about last April or so?
I've not really worn a mask since I got my 2nd shot first of April, and no one really wears them...except the occasional elderly person you see out.
Been to music events, dining out in packed restaurants, gun shows, etc...
Life here has been back to normal for quite some time now, and all covi
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I wonder how docile we would have been without TV?
We have faced more severe restrictions then we did under British rule and not many seem to care.
I get people being scared but this is destroying communities. I am waiting for the long term effects of children in their formative years not being able to see peoples faces. Having to treat every person - including themselves - as a biohazard. We have done a lot to dehumanize each other all in the name of protecting one another.
I'm sure someone will be vulger
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People keep including "wash your hands" as part of the standard COVID mantra. However isn't it pretty well established that surface transmission of COVID is negligible?
There are certainly other good reasons to wash your hands regularly - but I'm not sure that COVID is one of them.
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>"People keep including "wash your hands" as part of the standard COVID mantra. However isn't it pretty well established that surface transmission of COVID is negligible?"
Same with cloth masks. But whatever. Gotta do "something", especially if it LOOKS like you are doing something.
Oh look it's another fake rsilvergun account (Score:2)
and a motherfucking loathsome wumao one trying foment conflict for daddy Xi. How are all those Olympic boycotts treating you in west Taiwan?
Evolution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that if the host dies 2 weeks later, it had plenty of time to infect many other people
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Re:Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
The virus doesn't give a rat's arse what happens to you after your primary infectious period, which is before and shortly after symptom onset. You could burst into flames for all it cares after that point. You're a dead-end host.
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You could burst into flames for all it cares after that point.
That would be an interesting illness, politically speaking.
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For a virus to thrive it must be infectious but not severe in symptoms to most
That's one model.
Killing the host after enough time has passed to spread to many other hosts is a model that also works.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a dangerous virus myth and repeatedly has been denounced by experts, Thats because if the virus has a long enough incubation period, it can spread just fine, despite being deadly, if the deadly symptoms start to show up later. With SARS, its often 7 days to hospitalization, and 3 days to symptoms. So there is a lot of time for it to spread. Higher viral loads can increase spread advantage while making the virus worse. What you are saying is only true of the virus has to kill instantly which is not how things work. Many other viruses don't follow the stupid myth like Smallpox, Measles, Polio, Ebola, HIV, Hepatitis, pandemic Flus, etc.
Data today from South Africa says otherwise (Score:5, Interesting)
Bloomberg: South Africa Hospitalization Rate Plunges in Omicron Wave [bloomberg.com]
Re:Data today from South Africa says otherwise (Score:5, Informative)
Both data from the UK and South Africa show that when compared to the delta wave last summer, deaths are not rising with the case load. This is probably due to a number of factors such as vaccines, antivirals/corona drugs and people that already have a latent immunity.
Re:Data today from South Africa says otherwise (Score:5, Informative)
That may be the case in the UK but South Africa has a very low vaccination rate [bbc.com].
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Right. Politicians and people who take their world view from them are always *instantly* certain about what any event or piece of data signifies, but science takes time and effort to figure things out -- if it ever does. Science also changes its mind, which politically-driven thinkers never do. Politics regards uncertainty as weakness, but science *runs* on the stuff.
In a nutshell there are reasons to feel optimistic about data coming out of South Africa and the UK, but it's very early days yet.
Further proof (Score:4, Informative)
South Africa has a COVID fatality rate 25 times lower [twitter.com] than previous peak.
That's a chart you can view directly ay the link...
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No it doesn't. Data from South Africa continues to show that the infection *in South Africa* has largely spread through the school system with Omicron overwhelmingly affecting the young who are largely being ignored by various COVID measures the world over.
COVID is mild in young people. All COVID. Omicron, Delta, Beta, and whatever Trump called the WuFlu.
Hint: research involves more than just reading a Bloomberg article. You should really consider letting professionals do their job.
Who says that? (Score:2)
No it doesn't. Data from South Africa continues to show that the infection *in South Africa* has largely spread through the school system
Link please, I've seen soem articles that claim most Omicron is under 40, but not limited to schools at all.
The very fact Omicron would be limited to younger population would still prove the point of the main poster, that it's less dangerous overall.
another hypothesis not yet considered (Score:2)
Some observations suggest to me another hypothesis which doesn't seem to be discussed much:
Is the increased infectivity of omicron particularly concentrated among younger people for biological, and not just rate and type of social contact, reasons? It does seem from very preliminary data that it's increase is dominating in younger people though at present that could be just the social factors. But what if it isn't?
That would confound the observation of so far low severity rate.
If severity in old were sim
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Can you please quantify "largely"? That doesn't sound like an actionable statistic to me.
"Five weeks of data from the administrative capital Pretoria and the surrounding municipality show that hospitalizations are lower across all age groups. Among t
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No it doesn't. Data from South Africa continues to show that the infection *in South Africa* has largely spread through the school system with Omicron overwhelmingly affecting the young who are largely being ignored by various COVID measures the world over.
This is factually incorrect. The highest rates are from people in their 30s which is above ZAs median age.
https://www.nicd.ac.za/wp-cont... [nicd.ac.za]
More contrary evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Source: HKUMed finds Omicron SARS-CoV-2 can infect faster and better than Delta in human bronchus but with less severe infection in lung [med.hku.hk]
Re:More contrary evidence (Score:5, Informative)
The the damage to lungs which causes severe hospitalization & death is from complex immune system reactions & destruction, which is why anti-virals only seem to work in the earlier stages of infections, and after hospitalization the treatments are immune suppressants like steroids and IL-6 inhibitors.
So only if the lower replication of omicron in lung tissues also results in lower immune reactions & destruction to such tissues (possible but not at all guaranteed), would it be safe to assume lower severity of disease.
No evidence in their data (Score:2)
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There's anecdotes that it's less severe. There's no data yet.
Note that these aren't just any old researchers... (Score:2)
They're Imperial Researchers! So they must work directly for Queen Elizabeth - or Emperor Palpatine.
Wrong link (Score:2)
Toxic Individualism (Score:2)
Spend a good part of a century telling people they have best country in the world, that their nationality is "exceptional", that their individual rights are guaranteed and sacrosanct, and that they don't have to flex one inch to grease the social wheels of society if it impedes them in the slightest, and America is what you get.
Toxic individualism. On the opposite end of toxic collectivism, and nearly as damaging,
Then when you need them to band together for the good of the group, not only do they lack the w
Fear mongering based on lack of data. (Score:5, Informative)
> The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time.
This is the study people are linking to if you follow the maze long enough; https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc... [imperial.ac.uk]
Relevant bit:
> Hospitalisation and asymptomatic infection indicators were not significantly associated with Omicron infection, suggesting at most limited changes in severity compared with Delta.
So you have SA saying it's milder, then you have the rest of the world with "not enough data".
Premature to be making claims either way. The study was a period less than 2 weeks.
Denmark and South Africa ... (Score:5, Informative)
This is Ontario's modelling for omicron [documentcloud.org], which was presented yesterday.
Note slides 6, 7 and 8, which are titled as follows, with graphs:
And ...
Also according to South Africa [reuters.com] today, there is an uptick in deaths, mainly in the unvaccinated. Those who are vaccinated or have been infected have a somewhat milder course of the disease.
And, how many folds does it have to be milder to make up for its extreme spread? The doctor who is the head of the Science Advisory Table for Ontario said virulence has to be reduced by 10X, and that is not biologically possible [youtube.com].
Besides, South Africa's demographics are skewed towards a younger population, and they are in early summer (so people gather outdoors), you can't extrapolate what happens in industrial countries in northern latitudes (where it is colder, and gathering indoors), and they have an older population.
Severity is not the important thing here ... (Score:3)
We have all been waiting and hoping for a less severe strain to displace Delta, but many people seem to be missing what is worrying our hospitals.
This looks like spreading far more quickly than Delta. If we get a years worth of infections in a month, but only half the hospitalisation rate, that is still six times as many ICU beds demanded. We don't have that many. When hospitals are overwhelmed, the fatality rate can be much higher, as well as the number of survivors with permanent heart or lung damage. It might not matter which strain you get, but it does matter if you are one of the unlucky ones that needs hospital care when the system is not coping.
I'm not saying that will happen, just that medical people are concerned that it might. It is very sad to see the degree of partisan squabbling above. How did this become so party political in the US? I really worry for you guys, and I'm not talking about the virus.
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Meanwhile...
https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
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So far it seems Omicron is still proving to be less lethal, and if you are vaccinated and booster, you likely will be ok if you get O or D.
But again, it is still WAY early.
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And it's not like the situation in the UK is any different. Despite what the summary says in the UK Omicron accounts for very few hospitalizations.
The latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency show the doubling rate for Omicron is less than two days in all regions of England apart from the south-west. Cases are doubling every one-and-a-half days in London where 73.5% of Covid cases are now expected to be Omicron.
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
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If your metric is Severe Cases / Total Cases, it's less severe.
The takeaway depends on whether you know anything about statistics or not.
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Well, that's largely my only fear.
If I won't die from it...I'll treat it like any other disease I might could get and survive and go about my daily life.
From what I'm seeing out there, potentially Omicron is not only generally less severe, but it seems more often than not, asymptomatic.
Of course it is VERY early to tell....but so far, so good.
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The Imperial College study result is the same result as out of Denmark [files.ssi.dk].
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Stop making mountains out of molehills. Stop believing everything you read on the intertubules, bad for you.
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You're aware that we're up to 800,000 now, right? Do you promise to stop posting that link or thinking it was right once we do surpass 1M?
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You might want to google "lagging indicator".
Oh, who are we kidding. Ken never lets reality get in the way of his opinions.
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Speaking of "a bunch of losers who poorly modeled Covid before [heritage.org]". Let no one forget the loser that claimed that humans already had immunity to COVID. THAT LOSER WAS YOU, SuperKendall.
"Stop believing the Merchants of Fear and Death."
Stop believing liars like you, SuperKendall.
Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:5, Informative)
The doctor
That's called anecdata. Nobody is lying. "What a person said" is not a valid basis for knowledge. This has been known for a long time... couple thousand years "or more."
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How about the fact that Omicron is all over Florida given poo samples from various locations?
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/... [go.com]
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...Omicron is all over Florida...
You need to read a bit more carefully. The article's about wastewater samples taken in one Florida county (Orange), which, given that it's home to Orlando and its attendant theme parks, happens to be the one with the greatest number by far of incoming visitors in the state.
Proportion (Score:3)
...Omicron is all over Florida...
You need to read a bit more carefully. The article's about wastewater samples taken in one Florida county (Orange), which, given that it's home to Orlando and its attendant theme parks, happens to be the one with the greatest number by far of incoming visitors in the state.
DISCLAIMER: I work on the sequencing in a different country, so I don't know all the tiny details about the finding in Florida.
BUT!
Wastewater detection isn't solely a binary detection (present/absent). By using proper numerical models, it's possible to deconvolute the fraction of mutations' observations, and obtain a relatively good estimation of prevalence in the catchment area's population. My team does that in Switzerland [bsse.ethz.ch] in order to complement what we can already report based on the observed fraction am [bsse.ethz.ch]
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The doctor
That's called anecdata. Nobody is lying. "What a person said" is not a valid basis for knowledge. This has been known for a long time... couple thousand years "or more."
No, you just don't understand. Only evidence that supports my point of view is valid. Everything else is the gobermint lying to me. We all know they are trying to control us with 5G birdbots and tracking chips in the "jab" so we won't discover the earth is flat.
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Re:No evidence omicron even exists (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't *rapidly* test for - normal practice is submitting random/suspect samples to lab for sequencing or other analysis. Making absolute statements of impossibility is the true pseudoscience.
True, but most normal PCR tests, lab tests as you say, but the easily available ones, can identify the omicron because the genetic changes make one of the subtests fail whilst the others succeed.
BTW the comments on this thread are the exact example of why this is such an important piece of news. There's a whole bunch of politically motivated idiots who come out and shout "it's milder; do nothing" whilst not waiting for the evidence. This clearly says that, even if they end up being right, these idiots were still behaving like idiots and endangering everyone. By now based on South Africa, we can be sure that it isn't likely to be much more deadly than the previous variants, but it's too early to know that it won't be a big problem. Nations that can should be finding ways of delaying the growth until we actually know the consequences, likely in the next week or two.
Re:No evidence omicron even exists (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the early "It's milder; do nothing" stories that was circulated came from Russian government press, too.
This doesn't mean it's false, but we all know their recent track record on propaganda.
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That Coetzee said the thing is mild? Have a BBC article [bbc.co.uk] if that'll satisfy you. The problem is not that she's lying or doesn't exist. The problem is that she's clearly statistically illiterate (as with many Doctors). There are a bunch of things wrong with her analysis that Rei has gone through in far more detail than I can be bothered [slashdot.org] which means it's not useful data for predicting the effect of this variant if it gets loose in other countries like the Italy, the US, China or the UK.
You realise there's a
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You, Sir, are a jelly donut.
Now why go insulting jelly donuts like that.
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Early data from South Africa shouldn't be relied on, because their public officials are making travel bans a political issue, when actually it is a public health issue.
We should wait for the data to be reviewed by outside experts. It is too early to tell, for a bunch of reasons, including:
Re: Somebody's lying. (Score:2)
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P So far from what I've read and seen reported in the US, Omicron isn't causing the severity and hospitalization that delta has.
From all reports I've seen recently, the surge in cases requiring hospitalization are Delta.
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It's still too early to say for sure, another week or 2 will tell due to lag between infection and hospitalization.
Another thing is that if it is, numbers pulled out of my ass, 5 times as infectious and only causes half the hospitalizations, that is still over double the hospitalizations then current.
Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "missing part of the story" is a lesson in statistical biases (like much of this pandemic has been, esp. base-rate bias and Simpson's paradox).
In the case of the origin of this "Omicron Is Mild" story:
1) Selection Bias - Age: This wave started out with a much younger age group. Younger people have significantly lower inherent risk and better prognoses.
2) Selection Bias - Past Infection: A significantly higher percentage of people have been infected in this wave than were during the last wave. This implies reduced hospitalization and better prognoses.
3) Selection Bias - Vaccination: Same as above.
4) Immortal Time Bias - Imagine that you have two people hospitalized:
A) Good case: person will recover quickly and be discharged
B) Bad case: person will steadily worsen, end up in ICU, end up on a ventilator, and eventually die
The study is conducted a week later. What does it see? (A) has been discharged, and contributes to a "milder" presentation. (B) has neither died nor been discharged, and is rejected from consideration. (B) can't have died because not enough time has passed for them to die; they are effectively an immortal from the perspective of the study.
The faster the growth rate, the greater the amount that this bias skews results. To compensate for this, you either have to only consider cases that have been given enough time to die, or to estimate what percentage of unresolved cases will result in discharge vs. death.
None of the above were accounted for in the South African reports. Nor did there seem to be any interest in doing so - officials would usually refer to these results, and then sentences later use them as a reason to rail against the travel bans.
A couple other biases to consider:
1) Makes strains look more severe than they are: increased testing, esp. of patients that are already hospitalized. Contrarily, also making things look less severe: overloaded testing systems, so fewer cases (only the more severe ones) found
2) Makes strains look less severe than they are: early in waves, hospitals aren't as overloaded, and a patient's prognosis is better; the faster that case growth occurs, the more this amplifies the impact. Also, treatments available have improved over time.
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The "missing part of the story" is a lesson in statistical biases (like much of this pandemic has been, esp. base-rate bias and Simpson's paradox).
In the case of the origin of this "Omicron Is Mild" story:
1) Selection Bias - Age: This wave started out with a much younger age group. Younger people have significantly lower inherent risk and better prognoses.
The majority of Omicron infections were from people in their 30s which is above the countries median age.
2) Selection Bias - Past Infection: A significantly higher percentage of people have been infected in this wave than were during the last wave. This implies reduced hospitalization and better prognoses.
3) Selection Bias - Vaccination: Same as above.
I've heard various arguments along these lines over the past year and I'm still scratching my head as to what the point of raising them even is.
People care about the world as it actually is not as it was or not compared to some absolute reference. If all of the people who would be killed off by something bad were already killed off then what actually matters in the real world is that bad thing no longer
Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Informative)
"The country's median age" could not be more irrelevant when comparing severity between waves. The age distribution of the previous waves is what is of relevance. And the age distribution differences look like this [twimg.com]. That age group difference on its own would imply a third as many deaths in this wave as in the last wave.
If you're comparing severity between strains, you *must* compare apples to apples. You can't say "Strain X is more severe than Strain Y" when you're studying Strain Y relative to young people with past infection and vaccination and studying Strain X relative to old people with a COVID-naive immune system. That's not a strain comparison, and doesn't change how we should react to the news of a new fast-spreading strain entering the global picture.
How about literally every single one conducted thus far?
It's questionable even calling what's come out thus far (including the above from Imperial College) a "study". A better term would be "a report". When it comes to severity, we're not even talking about preprints here.
In case you've forgotten, Omicron was only declared a variant of concern 3 weeks ago, and had only been first identified four days before that. It's virtually impossible for a "study" that gives patients sufficient time to die to have been conducted already.
In the Imperial College report above, for example: just like the Danish report, they're just simply reporting raw numbers of hospitalizations between two dates, raw numbers of new cases between the dates (Omicron vs. non-Omicron), and comparing the rates of Omicron and non-Omicron hospitalizations without any controlling for any factors whatsoever. Read the report for yourself.
In the Imperial College and Danish reports, there is effectively control for vaccination and past infection status, since unlike South Africa, it's not being compared to waves that happened long ago, but current infections with Delta. But there's no control for age or time bias. In some of the South African reports there's control for age - in others, no control for age - but in none is there any control for past infection, vaccination status, or time bias.
Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Insightful)
4) Immortal Time Bias - Imagine that you have two people hospitalized:
A) Good case: person will recover quickly and be discharged
B) Bad case: person will steadily worsen, end up in ICU, end up on a ventilator, and eventually die
The study is conducted a week later. What does it see? (A) has been discharged, and contributes to a "milder" presentation. (B) has neither died nor been discharged, and is rejected from consideration. (B) can't have died because not enough time has passed for them to die; they are effectively an immortal from the perspective of the study.
Can you cite any studies that have been this sloppy?
The average time between a COVID diagnosis and death from COVID is about 3 weeks. Omicron was first discovered 3 weeks ago. We're only just starting to reach the point where you can make preliminary conclusions. You probably need another couple of weeks worth of data to have any confidence.
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Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Informative)
The doctor from South Africa where Omicron was first brought to light described it as "extremely mild."
The doctor from South Africa noticed the infection in *children*. Every COVID variant is mild in children. At the time Omicron was first raised to a variant of concern practically no one over the age of 40 had been infected, the breakout started in the South African school system.
Somebody is lying big time.
No. Someone is ignorant. That someone is you.
Whatever is going on, we aren't being told the whole story here.
The whole story is there, you just need to read more than some headline flashed up to you on Fox News.
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Any analyses I've heard of always claimed it was premature to draw firm conclusions. So go back to your Conspiracy Theory Checklist and try again.
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Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Informative)
Somebody is lying big time.
Many like to jump to that conclusion/explanation now, usually for partisan reasons, but people could simply be (a) mistaken and/or (b) trying to be optimistic, especially in light of incomplete data. While unhelpful from a data standpoint, those aren't nefarious. Furthermore, many like to ignore caveats that are often offered, like "it seems", "so far", etc... and jump straight to "someone's lying". That's really unhelpful.
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First, mainstream media is incompetent, in many cases criminally so, at accurately reporting on scientific or medical research. The media has a tendency of misquoting or over simplifying the conclusion. In most cases, the media reports on science before it has been peer reviewed and properly assessed.
No one is lying, someone is wrong but this article is only saying their is 'No Evidence'. That is not a strong claim. There is no evidence that Omicron is milder. There is no evidence that omicron is more sev
Re:Somebody's lying. (Score:4, Interesting)
Incorrect data isn't lying. Please don't bother with the Tin Foil hat talk.
The initial data could had shown a mild, but that was with a particular population, where once it has spread to a wider group of people its true danger is shown.
In the United States Diarrhea is mostly just an occasional annoyance. In other areas of the wold it is a major source of mortality.
Also the Media is pounding the scientist with what about this new Omicron, they press for information now. So the scientist tries to explain their initial findings, and tries to preface it with that it isn't the final result. However the press will just go on and show that this is science and the science is the truth or just a bunch of BS. Because they cant cover nuance, because their consumers are idiots.
Re: Somebody's lying. (Score:2)
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Yeah, that excuse was always bullshit. We knew what works to reduce the spread of disease when this first started. Wash you hands, wear a mask, try to stay away from large groups.
We also know what works against this disease, specifically. Wash your hands, wear a mask, stay away from large groups, and get the damn vaccine.
Guess what? We know what works against this variant as well. Are you ready? Wash your hands, wear a mask, stay away from large groups, and get the vaccine.
Let me know when you've done
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As I understand it, it's face-touching (eyes/nose/mouth) that's the concern there.
Hand washing is important to prevent the spread of disease generally. I'm not super picky about the diseases that I choose not to help spread, so I wash my hands regularly.
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Early observations of Omicron were that infections were not severe, but those observations were taken from a population of persons where a very high percentage of them had had Covid once or even twice in the past year. Covid infection provides you with natural antibodies, but across a population, mass infection results in maximal death and long-term complications from Covid. In South Africa, supply and logistical limitations has resulted in a vaccine penetration of around 6%, meaning they are simply getting