Denmark Sees Initial Signs That Dire Omicron Surge Can Be Avoided (msn.com) 149
"Early benchmarks from Denmark on infections and hospitalizations are providing grounds for guarded optimism that highly vaccinated countries might be able to weather the omicron wave," reports the Washington Post.
"The developments, coupled with Denmark's speedy rollout of booster shots, have raised hopes the country can avoid the dire surge for which it has been bracing..." [O]ver the last week, the country has fared better than it was expecting. After surging to record-breaking levels, the number of daily cases has stabilized. Officials recorded 12,500 cases on Thursday, compared to 11,000 late last week. More important, hospitalizations have come in — so far — on the very low end of what was projected. A week ago, Denmark's government science institute said daily new coronavirus hospital admissions could range between 120 and 250 patients by Christmas Eve. In recent days, daily admissions have hung around 125....
The early signals from Denmark do not provide any direct measure on the severity of the variant, one of the key questions in this phase of the pandemic. But they track with other emerging data and studies from Britain and South Africa that suggest omicron is less likely to lead to hospitalization than the delta variant. Scientists caution that there are still many uncertainties, and that even if omicron is less likely to cause hospitalization, its increased transmissibility means countless sicknesses and disruptions. The virus could also spread so widely that it nonetheless leads to an influx at hospitals...
It's also unclear whether and to what extent omicron's reduced severity is a feature of the virus itself, or rather a sign of population-level immunity stemming from vaccinations and prior infections.
Compared with delta, omicron is far better at evading vaccines and causing infections in those who have already been inoculated. But Denmark's experience shows that a rapid booster rollout might be able to nonetheless help cut down rising infection numbers. A team of scientists at the State Serum Institute said in a research paper this week that Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots appeared to provide a 55 percent protection against infections, compared against cases from those who had received only two doses. Even if that level of protection dips over time, boosters "can help us through the next months," said Tyra Grove Krause, the chief epidemiologist at Denmark's State Serum Institute. According to Our World in Data, Denmark has issued the most per capita booster shots of any European Union country. Denmark said in its latest monitoring report, released Thursday, that 36.8 percent of its population had been boosted, more than double the level from two weeks earlier. Overall, 77.2 percent of the country's population has received at least two doses.
"The developments, coupled with Denmark's speedy rollout of booster shots, have raised hopes the country can avoid the dire surge for which it has been bracing..." [O]ver the last week, the country has fared better than it was expecting. After surging to record-breaking levels, the number of daily cases has stabilized. Officials recorded 12,500 cases on Thursday, compared to 11,000 late last week. More important, hospitalizations have come in — so far — on the very low end of what was projected. A week ago, Denmark's government science institute said daily new coronavirus hospital admissions could range between 120 and 250 patients by Christmas Eve. In recent days, daily admissions have hung around 125....
The early signals from Denmark do not provide any direct measure on the severity of the variant, one of the key questions in this phase of the pandemic. But they track with other emerging data and studies from Britain and South Africa that suggest omicron is less likely to lead to hospitalization than the delta variant. Scientists caution that there are still many uncertainties, and that even if omicron is less likely to cause hospitalization, its increased transmissibility means countless sicknesses and disruptions. The virus could also spread so widely that it nonetheless leads to an influx at hospitals...
It's also unclear whether and to what extent omicron's reduced severity is a feature of the virus itself, or rather a sign of population-level immunity stemming from vaccinations and prior infections.
Compared with delta, omicron is far better at evading vaccines and causing infections in those who have already been inoculated. But Denmark's experience shows that a rapid booster rollout might be able to nonetheless help cut down rising infection numbers. A team of scientists at the State Serum Institute said in a research paper this week that Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots appeared to provide a 55 percent protection against infections, compared against cases from those who had received only two doses. Even if that level of protection dips over time, boosters "can help us through the next months," said Tyra Grove Krause, the chief epidemiologist at Denmark's State Serum Institute. According to Our World in Data, Denmark has issued the most per capita booster shots of any European Union country. Denmark said in its latest monitoring report, released Thursday, that 36.8 percent of its population had been boosted, more than double the level from two weeks earlier. Overall, 77.2 percent of the country's population has received at least two doses.
The US isn't as lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
About 81% of Denmark has had at least one dose https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-epidemic/covid-19-updates-statistics-and-charts [www.sst.dk]. The US has around 71% vaccinated https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=USA [ourworldindata.org].
Worse, the US non-vaccinated are largely clustered, with very high differences in vaccination rate by state. For an extreme example, look at Maine, where the percentage fully vaccinated is higher than the US percentage who have had at least one dose https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker [mayoclinic.org]. Not too surprisingly, some areas are getting his much worse than others. In the other direction. Alabama and Mississippi have now vaccination rates of around 50% and have the highest per a capita death rates from Covid of any US state https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ [statista.com]. Note that data has changed over time; early on in the pandemic the highest rated states there were all "blue" states, but those states have crept down the list. And it is very likely that in many of these states, the Covid death count is being underestimated, due to a combination of families actively fighting against Covid being listed on death certificates as well as local coroners deliberately avoiding putting down Covid. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/12/22/covid-deaths-obscured-inaccurate-death-certificates/8899157002/ [usatoday.com] discusses this, including noting one county with 80,000 people where the local coroner has literally recorded zero Covid deaths.
Omicron looks less deadly than Delta, but it is still pretty bad. Please get vaccinated if you have not. Please make sure to mask in public, and do not eat in indoor restaurants. The next few weeks is likely going to be very bad, but we can help mitigate it.
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Also remember that exponential growth (infections) exceeds linear effects (deadliness) every time unless saturation is reached. ICUs will however likely get overwhelmed by Omicron long before saturation and then things get a lot more deadly than they are now. May well go up to previous levels of deadliness or above.
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Indeed, we will soon have some useful data about vaccination rates. The UK is really getting Omicron'd as well, and they're at 75%, some 6% less. We in Canada, 1% more than Denmark. Us, a few percent below UK - and best of all, the US has a wide range of vaccination rates across the states.
If Canada has a better experience than Denmark by a bit, UK worse by a fair bit, the US knows what to expect.
why would we swerve to avoid (Score:2)
when we can step on the gas and power through our problems straight on?
Severity vs contagiousness (Score:1, Troll)
A virus causes severe disease if a lot of it replicates in your internal organs and/or lungs.
A virus gets airborne and very contagious if a lot of it replicates in outward-facing parts of your body: nose/mouth/sinuses/skin
By a happy coincidence that's really the result of hundreds of millions of years of vertebrate evolution, those two objectives are somewhat at odds with another.
By another happy coincidence having mostly to do with arithmetic only slightly beyond the 5th grade level, if you encounter a vir
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That's one of the possible outcomes that were postulated in the very beginning.
But you know: If wishes were horses... then nobody would ever go hungry again (except vegetarians and vegans).
Also, it's just too early to tell one way or the other. If the duration a couple of people I knew that died intubated in an induced coma are an
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A virus gets airborne and very contagious if a lot of it replicates in outward-facing parts of your body: nose/mouth/sinuses/skin
This is untrue. Direct Contact pathogens shed by "outward facing body parts" are not necessarily airborne. Being airborne means a capability to survive in "air" for an extended period of time without degredation. It has to do with the lipid (or protein) surface or enacpsulation of the viral RNA/DNA. A virion which is in the Contact/Droplet category does not become airborne without a change in the encapsulation or surface configuration.
This is a mechanics problem.
Re: Severity vs contagiousness (Score:1)
A virus can be contagious without being airborne, but it cannot be contagious if none of it makes it to your airway, to your excretions or secretions, or your skin. It can replicate in your liver or any other internal organ all it wants (and can kill you all kinds of dead as it does) but if enough of it doesn't have a path out, it's not going to be as contagious as if your skin or saliva or exhalations were teaming with it.
Re: Severity vs contagiousness (Score:1)
Smallpox causes a pox. It's not subtle. It's very contagious at the micro level but not so much at the macro level.
Dire? Dire omicron surge? (Score:3, Informative)
Really?
The way I've been watching this variant pan out, over weeks, is that it is less virulent - considerably less virulent.
It seems to impact the upper respiratory tract, much like the common cold and thus has far less of a dangerous health impact.
So, the "dire" part of this, is absolutely everything to do with health services and them being overwhelmed - and if we really nail a flag in the ground, about this entire pandemic, that's been the problem since day one.
Yes, early variants had a high mortality rate in older and immuno-compromised individuals - a massive cause for concern, but we seem to now be looking at a variant that spreads extremely rapidly, yet has a far lower threat. That may change, but so far, it seems to hold true.
It's isn't "Dire" and in fact, may be a blessing in disguise - if it becomes the dominant variant, which seems to be the case.
Yes, it's early days and yes, it can still completely overwhelm health services due to the sheer volume of infection, but let us at least see some light here - once we are past that, we MAY be seeing the end of Covid as a virus with a high mortality rate.
Cross fingers and toes....
Re:Dire? Dire omicron surge? (Score:4, Informative)
Merry Christmas!
Re:Dire? Dire omicron surge? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's isn't "Dire" and in fact, may be a blessing in disguise - if it becomes the dominant variant, which seems to be the case.
It depends if infection with Omicron provides greatly increased immunity to other strains. If it doesn't it just means everyone is going to get Omicron this winter, and then the pandemic will pick up where it left off.
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It's isn't "Dire" and in fact, may be a blessing in disguise - if it becomes the dominant variant, which seems to be the case.
It depends if infection with Omicron provides greatly increased immunity to other strains. If it doesn't it just means everyone is going to get Omicron this winter, and then the pandemic will pick up where it left off.
Yeah, that's probably the real "dire" outlook. That as the world continues to see unequal distribution of vaccines and vaccination programmes, we see more virulent strains. Whilst wealthier nations are 'enjoying' the ability to provide booster doses to anyone that wants them, there are many nations that have only single vaccinated a small percentage of their population.
Globally, the economy cannot handle continued lockdown measures indefinitely, so surely the most affordable way forward, is to vaccinate the
It really is too early to tell (Score:2)
Also, this finding is not plausible, so extraordinary evidence will be needed. This is not even real conventional evidence. It is an early indicator.
Sure, I also hope this is true. But seeing what one wants to see instead of what is actually happening is deeply foolish.
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Jesus Christ you really want covid to kill everyone. What is your problem gweihr? You have been a cheerleader of the virus on here since it started. Do you find it exciting ? Think it is going to trigger a socialist revolution? You are mentally ill.
Nope. I am rational and understand risk management. You are a clueless cretin with delusions. Also, I am trying to contribute to keep casualties _down_. You are doing the opposite.
Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore (Score:2)
South Africa and the results coming in from that country?
Small wonder (Score:2)
They went on lockdown 10 days ago.
Who knows... (Score:1)
The complete story (Score:1)
Just scrolling through... (Score:1)
Dire? (Score:1)
"Dire" ??? (Score:1)
Re:No this is not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a single data point. It is an anecdote.
This is about what an entire *country* is doing. I'm not sure "anecdote" means what you think it means.
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Are you trying to tell me that Denmark has a control for us to compare to that's been held the same in all respects except for an experimental variable?
Otherwise, this is not science, it's an anecdote, and you need to go back to science class.
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Ok fine, show me the multivariate analysis. I can wait.
The basis of science is you pose a null hypothesis and then you try to disprove it. Astronomy follows this. Economics follows this. The article merely noticed a correlation, and assumed a causation.
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Ok fine, show me the multivariate analysis.
This seems like a very weird demand. Multivariate analysis was invented in its most basic form in the 1880s, and didn't match its modern forms with all the tools we have until the 1940s. Are you going to assert that anyone doing anything prior to 1885 or so was never doing science when they looked at anything with a lot of variables because they didn't have the proper statistical tools? And more than that, you are going to insist that whatever they were doing must be not just science but must be "anecdote"
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OK, fine. You're making the argument that an anecdote can be a good basis for a hypothesis.
You still haven't provided any evidence that Denmark's results has been caused by a specific policy and are not a merely coincidence.
At the beginning of the pandemic, washing hands, face masks, social distancing, face shields, one-way signs through grocery store aisles... were all reasonable hypotheses. But at some point you have to show me the real-world, experimental evidence. Don't argue to me "well astronomy doesn
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You're making the argument that an anecdote can be a good basis for a hypothesis.
No. .Please reread the conversation. No one is calling this data set an "anecdote" but you and the original AC. Calling a large data set an "anecdote" is already missing a major point.
But at some point you have to show me the real-world, experimental evidence.
Ideally, yes. But practically and ethically we can't always do that. To use an extreme example, no one has ever run experiments to confirm the LD50 of pretty much anything but we're pretty comfortable with LD50s for cyanide, arsenic, falling off a building, etc. Real-world evidence can come, and often does come, without doing
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I'm calling it an "anecdote" because that's what it is. It is a curious triviality that has not been experimentally verified.
We don't need to: Most people's decision making is not between "Do I fall off a building today, or do I not fall off a building today?"
Most people's decision making is "Do I install a fence aroun
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I'm calling it an "anecdote" because that's what it is. It is a curious triviality that has not been experimentally verified.
No. This is the primary point you are missing; there's a large spectrum of types of evidence from anecdote, or curious triviality, and a controlled experiment. Controlled experiments are great, but in practical, real world contexts we often cannot have them at all. And this is true all the time with public health issues. For example, there are no controlled experiments about how much lead in the blood effects children for obvious ethical issues. So we're stuck looking at real world data sets. And the same g
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So we're stuck looking at real world data sets.
I don't have any issue with analyzing the data. As I said, show me the multivariate analysis. This article hasn't even done that.
If it turns out that the article's hypothesis is correct but only because it forces people to go outside and get sunlight and the sunlight is healthy and... we would have no way of knowing. Because one policy by one country only provides one data point.
I keep saying everything you're saying is true, and yet this does not change the fact that the article is engaging in the broadest
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Re: Countries that have erradicated COVID. (Score:5, Informative)
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Japan literally just found their first Omicron case [reuters.com], so what on Earth are you talking about?
Re:Countries that have erradicated COVID. (Score:4, Informative)
Asian cultures are a bit different than many Westerns ones when it comes to individualism vs collectivism. In general they're a lot more collectivist and will do uncomfortable things, like wearing masks, if they're told that it's going to benefit some greater good, instead of becoming special snowflake Karens that buy their kids guns to shoot up a school.
Japan's law system is also rather harsh, where most charges that are brought to a court also end in a conviction. And they have a lot of rules. People like you probably wouldn't like it there.
Re: Countries that have erradicated COVID. (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccines and masks reduce the viral load. This reduces the infection rate, but also reduces the hospitalization and fatality rates if you do get infected. That is why it is a little unclear whether omicron is milder overall, or just milder because it's sweeping through populations with high immunity already. (Delta would also be less harmful in these populations than in naive populations.)
Maybe the countries you listed just have a higher rate of vaccination and mask-wearing than the U.S.?
Re:Sure, let's not measure severity (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's report numbers of "cases", and all kinds of other numbers, so that we'll have SOMETHING scary to put in headlines. After all, not enough people are dying, so let's not use THOSE numbers.
This seems like a weird thing to say given that the summary above explicitly discusses severity issues in detail.
Let's also pretend the this "Omicron" (ofuckyou) variant is not the beginning of the end of this pandemic, let's keep saying we have to wait for more data, for a few more months, while we impose more unreasonable, life-destroying, business-crushing limitations on everyone.
Given the "ofuckyou" in your comment, I doubt you are going to listen carefully to anything anyone else has to say, but I will nevertheless make an attempt. We don't know if Omicron is the "beginning of the end" for a whole bunch of reasons. Yes, it is more contagious, and it does mean that many people are going to get it who have not yet had covid. That doesn't mean that it ends here. Unfortunately, the more people who have a disease, the more opportunity there is for the disease to mutate more. I'm also not sure what you think are "unreasonable, life-destroying, business-crushing limitations on everyone." Most of those interventions, like masking, are to try and allow people to do normal, everyday behavior while reducing risk. There's this repeated idea that lockdowns hurt businesses, but the evidence is that many Americans were staying home before any lockdowns started, and already avoiding restaurants and similar activity. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-didnt-wait-for-their-governors-to-tell-them-to-stay-home-because-of-covid-19/ [fivethirtyeight.com]. The sooner we get covid under control, the sooner we can all go back to normal. Unfortunately, since throughout this crisis, many people have been unwilling to take very basic safeguards, the situation has continued and stayed bad far longer than it should have. If you want to help businesses and everyone get back to normal, then get vaccinated if you are not vaccinated, wear masks when in public, and socially distance when possible.
Re:Sure, let's not measure severity (Score:5, Informative)
"Slashdot summaries" are not a good source of scientific information. Rather than going several steps separated from the source, try going to the actual source [service.gov.uk]. And when reading these figures, remember that Delta was associated with roughly double the risk of hospitalization as the original Wuhan-Hu-1 strain.
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Stratified Cox proportional hazard regression assessed that the risk of presentation to emergency care or hospital admission with Omicron was approximately three-fifths of that for Delta (Hazard Ratio 0.62, 95% CI: 0.55 to 0.69). The risk of hospital admission alonetwo-fifths of that for Delta (Hazard Ratio 0.38, 95% CI: 0.30 to 0.50). These analyses stratified on week of specimen and area of residence and further adjusted for age, exact calendar date, sex, ethnicity, local area deprivation, international travel and vaccination status.
This effect is still present when stratified by vaccination status. However, this is preliminary analysis including only 431 attendances to the emergency department and 70 hospital admissions with Omicron. These analyses also are not adjusted for undiagnosed previous COVID-19 infection, or co-morbidities of these individuals. It is not an assessment of in hospital severity, which will take further time to access. Despite adjusting for calendar week, there may still be reporting delays for hospital events. It is important to highlight that these lower risks do not necessarily imply reduced hospital burden over the epidemic wave given the higher growth rate and immune evasion observed with Omicron.
Using a very similar data set, Imperial College, provided estimates that Omicron cases had a 15 to 25% (Hazard ratio 0.8; 95% CI 0.75-85) reduced risk [ed: 75-85% risk] of emergency department attendance (hospitalisations in their data set) and 40 to 49% (HR 0.55, 95% CI 0.51-59) reduced risk [ed: 51-59% risk] of a hospitalisation with a stay of one or more nights.
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Scotland, using their national data, performed a cohort study, to determine the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation. The calculated rate of S gene negative reinfection was approximately 10 times that of previously detected S gene positive. Only 6.6% of S gene negative cases were detected in the 60-plus age group and 49.2% were detected in 20 to 39%. Using their model there were less individuals admitted to hospital than expected with 3 estimates highlighted:
all cases: 36% of expected (95% CI 22-56%), based on 18 admissions for S negative
all cases, followed for 7 days: 33% of expected (95% CI 15-65%), based on 7 admissions for S negative followed for 7 days
all cases, aged 20 to 59 years: 34.4% of expected (95% CI 25-70%), based on 15
admissions for S negative
However, there are a number of important caveats to this data:
limited circulation of S negative among the over 60s and therefore this estimate will lean to an over optimistic conclusion for this group
it does not include those tested in the NHS hospital laboratories which may give an underestimate for admissions and biases towards individuals who test in the community compared to those that test in hospitals
an incomplete assessment of undiagnosed previous infection of COVID-19 and any impact of waning of vaccine effectiveness in the over 60s who received their vaccination more than 8 to 10 weeks ago
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Omicron is particularly concentrated in 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 year old groups. ..
Age group / Delta / Omicron
20-29 / 11,457 (9.8%) / 17,552 (33%)
30-39 / 19,295 (17%) / 12,411 (23%)
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In addition,
Re:Sure, let's not measure severity (Score:5, Insightful)
TL/DR: Omicron's hospitalization risk, using preliminary and very imperfect data, looks to be about 2/5ths that of Delta, maybe more like 3/5ths, possibly (but probably not) as low as 1/3rd. Multiply these numbers by two (4/5ths, 6/5ths, 2/3rds) to compare to the original Wuhan-Hu-1 strain.
The main concerns with these analyses is the risk of Simpson's Paradox [wikipedia.org]. Simpson's Paradox arises when you add a new group to an existing group, and both groups show the same trend, yet combining them appears to reverse the trend. If Omicron is adding whole new groups of infectees to the pool, people whose immunity was so good that they previously wouldn't have gotten infected at all but now come down with a mild infection, then it will drag down the apparent severity of the strain as a whole, even if the strain is just as severe among the "would-be-infected-either-way" people as earlier strains.
There is good news in all this, however, which is: all data keeps showing that Omicron's "superpower" is not extreme R0, but rather extreme evasion of immunity; the more evasive it is, the lower its R0 needs to be to explain its apparent rate of spread. This can be witnessed in its concentration in young adults. Young adults normally take on the most risk of being infected and initiating superspreader events, but also have the highest resistance to infection, due to a strong immune response from either vaccination or past infection. This immunity lowers the percentage that get infected by Delta. which has a very high R0, but not by Omicron, which relies more on immune evasion. While these age groups provide easy fuel for Omicron's initial spread, it should burn through these "superspreader" populations quickly, and its Rt advantage over Delta should in theory then decline.
The downside (or is it the upside?) is that deaths in these waves should be backloaded: the initial surge is in low-risk groups, and it should only more slowly spread from there to higher risk groups.
This is of course all about acute disease. It's far too soon to say how Long COVID will fare here.
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More than a fair response. :)
Hope you're having a good holiday :)
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risk of presentation to emergency care or hospital admission with Omicron was approximately three-fifths of that for Delta
More accurately, ~85% of 'immunised' people are at no risk of hospitalisation yet are catching Omicron like crazy.
Omicron isn't significantly less severe than Delta. It's just that vastly more 'immunised' people are catching it.
https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1473764701553283076 [twitter.com]
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" More important, hospitalizations have come in — so far — on the very low end of what was projected. A week ago, Denmark's government science institute said daily new coronavirus hospital admissions could range between 120 and 250 patients by Christmas Eve. In recent days, daily admissions have hung around 125...."
What the fuck do you think severity is talking about if not hospital admissions?
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Re: Sure, let's not measure severity (Score:1)
We really messed up with undereducating and lack of critical thinking training. Iâ(TM)m sorry that nobody took the time to teach you how to reason.
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Why are you so angry?
Re:Sure, let's not measure severity (Score:5, Informative)
>Sure lets not mesure severity
From the article:
"More important, hospitalizations have come in — so far — on the very low end of what was projected. A week ago, Denmark's government science institute said daily new coronavirus hospital admissions could range between 120 and 250 patients by Christmas Eve. In recent days, daily admissions have hung around 125"
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Measuring severity is hard and difficult to precisely define. That's part of why looking at hospitalizations is a useful proxy.
No, not really. Not unless you start by stratifying the data by risk groups. Without that, you run the risk of completely misinterpreting the data, taking a virus that kills the same number of people in all groups, but infects an order of magnitude more people in low-risk groups, and it ends up looking more severe on paper even though the actual death toll would be similar.
Right now, we just don't know much.
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Oh really? Oh shut up.
I'm sure telling people you disagree with to shut up, or otherwise insult them feels really satisfying but it really isn't productive for either convincing anyone or trying to understand reality better.
You know that this is all about maintaining uncertainty and fear, about a variant that is clearly extremely mild.
Sigh. So now, we're also doing the thing where people you disagree must actually be secretly in agreement with you, and know the truth but not want to acknowledge it. Again, probably pretty satisfying but not productive.
Oh but yeah, everybody knows that journalists are noble people who seek out the best interests of the public
Your attempt at sarcasm is less than amusing. No one has asserted that anyone is "noble"-
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Oh but yeah, everybody knows that journalists are noble people who seek out the best interests of the public, I get it.
They certainly have more redeeming value to humanity than anti-vaxxers, who have none.
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>Shut up, fucktard. "The early signals from Denmark do not provide any direct measure on the severity of the variant"
So ? right after mentioning the positive early signs from Denmark on hospitalizations we're reminded we need the results from actual studies first before we can confidently state that Omicron IS less severe.
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>Shut up, fucktard. "The early signals from Denmark do not provide any direct measure on the severity of the variant"
So ? right after mentioning the positive early signs from Denmark on hospitalizations we're reminded we need the results from actual studies first before we can confidently state that Omicron IS less severe.
As a side note [9cache.com].
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Go back and read the summary about hospital admissions. Those are gauge of severity. Stop being so obtuse.
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> NO there is not measurement of severity, period.
Yeah, what I'm seeing is lots of speculation on Omicron's lower severity by journalists, and lots of 'anecdotal' observations to that effect, but studies are pointing in that direction :
Covid-19: Early studies give hope omicron is milder than other variants : https://www.bmj.com/content/37... [bmj.com]
Omicron Infections Seem to Be Milder, Three Research Teams Report : https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... [nytimes.com]
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It’s ok if you like men, we’re not here to judge.
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Is the best retort you can come up with is shut up bitch retard? The only person that comes off as a psycho is you.
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while we impose more unreasonable
Wearing a mask around groups of people and getting vaccinated is unreasonable?
life-destroying
No idea what this means. No one's life has been "destroyed" except those who died of which, currently, are mainly those who think having to wear a mask and get vaccinated is unreasonable.
business-crushing limitations
Perhaps all those businesses in private industry should have had a six month emergency fund they could drawn on, or used some of that socialist taxpayer-provided money t
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Plenty of peoples lives have been destroyed.
A lot of countries don't have social safety nets provided by the government. If you lose your job then you starve, businesses in many countries don't get bailouts - they go bust. Even a six month emergency fund would not be enough for a situation that's now going on 2 years.
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Well it ripped through such countries anyway despite the efforts made to slow it down.
Aside from the effect or local shutdowns, many countries were also affected by foreign shutdowns (no tourists - foreign income from tourists is extremely important to many poorer countries, also no customers for manufactured goods etc), not to mention poor healthcare, poor hygiene, poor enforcement of any rules (eg masks) and poor distribution of vaccines.
So yes if they had just let it rip, many people in poorer countries
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Requiring masks is a way that businesses can stay open to a certain extent with the smallest impositions, so I am baffled that so many are against masking.
I have seen no studies that indicate that wearing "paper masks" has any effect whatsoever. In order to determine if masks have any effect, one would need to directly compare "masked" vs "unmasked" infection rates while holding all other variables constant (or otherwise adjusting for all other variables). No such research has been done (if it has, then it would be interesting to see/read, but there is none).
"paper masks" are the ones that people are wearing. They are not respirators and do not have any Pe
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It takes about 2 weeks from infection to hospitalization and a week more to death. The first case of Omicron in Denmark was detected on November 22nd, and the initial spread was primarily among the 20-29 year olds. Even early this week, half the known Omicron cases are in the age group 18-39. This group predominantly do not get hospitalized, especially if they are vaccinated (and around 80% in that age group are fully vaccinated).
At a press conference a few days before Christmas, Henrik Ullum (head of State
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)
And no one is actually dying...
This is just false. Heck, the first confirmed person in the US to die from Omicron was an unvaccinated person who had previous had Covid. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/21/us-omicron-coronavirus-death-first-reported/ [washingtonpost.com]. It is less deadly, but that doesn't make it a walk in the park. And as TFA discusses, if you drastically increase infectiousness, then you can end up with more people dying even if the disease is itself less deadly. That's even more the case because hospitals could become overwhelmed and not have the resources.
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HIV takes years to kill people
HIV does not kill people. HIV exposes a defect in the immune system which causes the eventual expression of a SYNDROME called AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The cause of death is from some other disease which the immune system no longer has the ability for fight. There has been not a single death from HIV. Many have died of AIDS, however.
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As do 50% of the US population.
https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdis... [cdc.gov]
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What you're putting your finger on as showing COVID as benign is actually the secret of COVID's success as a pandemic. People often don't know they're infected because the virus evades the innate immune system and the body does not mount a defense until you've incubated a lot of virus. You feel sick earlier with the flu, which means you're less likely to be out and about infecting other people.
The bottom line is that this has killed more than 3/4 of a million people in the US. That's a big deal. For the
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1. A lot of people are dying
2. If ICUs get overwhelmed, Omicron may well get as deadly as Delta.
You are a liar and clearly stupid. Here is a quote for you: If everyone else panics except you, you likely do not understand the problem.
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Fascinating. You do not even manage a consistent argument. All you can to is "yourrrwrong" and some crude attempts at AdHominem.
Here is a hint:
A) High tested intelligence does not actually mean you can competently use it in general situations and
B) with that sample of deep thinking you just gave you are not in the 98% percentile. I think you were tricked and your ego accepted it and suppressed any questions.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:4, Informative)
800,000 dead so far. More than two world wars combined.
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Both world wars killled 10s of millions of people. I am not going to say this is nothing, but 800.000 is the wrong number to compare to world wars. Besides the number of dead of corona is over 5 million.
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
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Gotta pwn those libs from the afterlife!
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Stop. Everyone knows they've been fudging the numbers.
Yes they have. When we look at the excess death rate compared to earlier years we can see that COVID deaths are being massively under-reported.
"Died with covid", etc.
Less Fox News for you.
There cannot be a rational discussion about this until certain folks admit that testing processes are deeply flawed, leading to inaccurate case numbers
Of course. That's why we combine case numbers with total tests and positivity so we can get an accurate picture of how a virus is spreading. But if all you ever concern yourself with is what your favourite right wing talking heads say they'll give you one number and then complain that it's wrong.
Maybe you should surround yourself with smarter pe
Re: This is getting ridiculous (Score:2)
How are you explaining total death statistics?
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How are you explaining total death statistics?
Why, Anthrax [wonkette.com] of course!
(Yeah, lots of face to be palmed there...)
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Re:Oh Bollocks (Score:5, Informative)
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Nope. There are vaccinations were a full base-immunization gives you lifelong protection against death, for example Tetanus. You are full of crap.
Yes, you should get Tetanus refreshed every 10 years, because protection against getting sick in the first place wears off.
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Tetanus is a bacterium. The immune response to bacteria is different enough from the immune response to viruses that talking about them in the same context is misleading.
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Read the claim I responded to again. Statements made did refer to "immunology" in general. Do you have a reading dysfunctionality?
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But ultimately it's nitpicking to take apart the point that was being made merely based on "Tetanus is a bacterium".
If you want an example of a virus try tick-borne encephalitis, which does exists in Europe and Asia and has no effective anti-viral treatment.
As a preventative measure you get 3 initial shots that are spaced out a bit (2nd ~3 months, 3rd ~9 months) and then
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It is a matter of "time since vaccination" and has nothing to do with number of shots. The idea that an infinite number of the same sh*t can somehow confer different immunity contradicts every single tenet of immunology. It is anti-scientific in the extreme. We are now at the level of Pfizer as a religion. Screw that idea sidewise, because it is WRONG.
Counterpoint: The polio vaccine has only about 90% effectiveness after two doses. Effectiveness increases to about 99% after three doses, and ~100% after four.
The tenets of immunology are clearly not what you believe them to be.
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The primary purpose (and the design goal) of the vaccines was not to prevent infection. It was to prevent the immunologically defective from killing themselves with ARDS by pre-training the safety systems to correctly identify self and purge auto-immune antibodies that bind to human S-like markers from the response repetoir when the foobar immune system could do so without killing the host.
There are presently ongoing studies searching for the the "correct" antigen targets so that an actual vaccine designed