Omicron is Spreading at Lightning Speed. Scientists Are Trying To Figure Out Why (npr.org) 262
NPR reports: In late November, more than 110 people gathered at a crowded Christmas party at a restaurant in Oslo. Most of the guests were fully vaccinated. One had returned from South Africa just a few days earlier and was unknowingly carrying the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Ultimately, about 70% of the partygoers were infected. Scientists who traced this super spreader event concluded it was evidence that omicron was "highly transmissible" among fully-vaccinated adults. Just over a month later, omicron's speedy worldwide ascent now makes it abundantly clear that the party wasn't an isolated example. In country after country, the new variant has outcompeted its predecessor, the delta variant -- with one case of omicron sparking at least three other new infections on average. Cases have soared to record highs in parts of Europe and now the U.S., where about half a million new infections have been recorded in a single day. "This is a game-changing virus, especially in the vaccinated population where people have had a level of invincibility," says Sumit Chanda, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research.
Indeed, in a world where vaccinations and infections have built up immunity, other variants were having trouble gaining a foothold. Yet omicron is thriving. "This changes the calculus for everybody," says Chanda. And so scientists are trying to figure out: What accounts for omicron's lightning quick spread? While it's still early, they're starting to piece together why the new variant is so contagious -- and whether that means old assumptions about how to stay safe need to be revamped. [...] The variant's many mutations on the spike protein allow it to infect human cells more efficiently than previous variants could, leaving many more people again vulnerable. Because of that, "immune escape" alone could be the major reason why the variant looks so contagious compared to delta, which was already highly transmissible.
In fact, omicron has been spreading at a pace that's comparable to how fast the original strain of the coronavirus spread at the very beginning of the pandemic despite the world's newfound levels of immunity. "The playing field for the virus right now is quite different than it was in the early days," says Dr. Joshua Schiffer, an infectious disease researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "The majority of variants we've seen to date couldn't survive in this immune environment." Even delta was essentially at a "tie," he says, where it was persisting, but "not growing very rapidly or decreasing very rapidly." A new study from Denmark suggests that much of the variant's dominance comes down to its ability to evade the body's immune defenses. Researchers compared the spread of omicron and delta among members of the same household and concluded that omicron is about 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the delta variant among vaccinated and boosted individuals.
Indeed, in a world where vaccinations and infections have built up immunity, other variants were having trouble gaining a foothold. Yet omicron is thriving. "This changes the calculus for everybody," says Chanda. And so scientists are trying to figure out: What accounts for omicron's lightning quick spread? While it's still early, they're starting to piece together why the new variant is so contagious -- and whether that means old assumptions about how to stay safe need to be revamped. [...] The variant's many mutations on the spike protein allow it to infect human cells more efficiently than previous variants could, leaving many more people again vulnerable. Because of that, "immune escape" alone could be the major reason why the variant looks so contagious compared to delta, which was already highly transmissible.
In fact, omicron has been spreading at a pace that's comparable to how fast the original strain of the coronavirus spread at the very beginning of the pandemic despite the world's newfound levels of immunity. "The playing field for the virus right now is quite different than it was in the early days," says Dr. Joshua Schiffer, an infectious disease researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "The majority of variants we've seen to date couldn't survive in this immune environment." Even delta was essentially at a "tie," he says, where it was persisting, but "not growing very rapidly or decreasing very rapidly." A new study from Denmark suggests that much of the variant's dominance comes down to its ability to evade the body's immune defenses. Researchers compared the spread of omicron and delta among members of the same household and concluded that omicron is about 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the delta variant among vaccinated and boosted individuals.
We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Insightful)
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Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. -John Lennon
Imagine a time traveling murderbot sent by a genocidal computer to kill the human leader of the resistance -- before he is born. -James Cameron
(Stephen King asked us to imagine that kind of virus, too. He called it Captain Trips. Strangely enough, it was a virus that escaped from a government lab that was researching biological weapons....)
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Imagine you spewed pointless trivia and attempted to pass it off as insight.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:2)
I see you are the type of troll who fancies himself a performance artists.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:5, Insightful)
better to find out that our society and infrastructure can't handle a serious pandemic with a slightly dangerous virus than to deal with something both highly contagious and with a high fatality rate.
almost nobody is admitting that we're a bunch of fucking failures. Three years ago I would have argued that the world's governments wouldn't have allowed things to grow so out of control. Egg on my face I guess. The species is a incompetent as it is arrogant.
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If Ebola ever developed a proper incubation time, like a week or something, we would be so unbelievably boned.
Mindyou I wonder wonder if these paranoid-schizophrenic clownshoes marching about getting angry about vaccinations and masks would feel so cocky about a disease that causes you to basically melt into blood and gore.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't the incubation time, it is the method of transmission. Ebola requies physical contact [cdc.gov]. Part of the probem of the last Ebola outbreak in Africa was the insistence of following tradition and mourners handling dead bodies.
There is a line where lethality and ease of transmission work against each other. If a virus kills a host faster than it can spread, it dies out on its own.
12 Monkeys, here we come.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Informative)
Ebola has the potential to become airborne, although not very efficiently. It hasn't, yet, but with enough time it is bound to.
Flu requires just two mutations to become deadlier than the 1918 outbreak and although it's extremely unlikely that those two specific points along the DNA will mutate in just the right way, they certainly could.
Epstein-Barr is a really nasty virus, as it is known to trigger Multiple Sclerosis. I don't know if it's possible for it to mutate to increase the probability of this, or if it's essential that the victim has a rare genetic mutation before it can be triggered, but virtually everyone is infected because it spreads so easily.
HPV-16 and HPV-18 can cause cancer. Although there is a vaccine, it isn't administered universally so these viruses are easily capable of staying in the population.
These last three are far nastier than the potential for flu to turn deadly because we'd take action against an exceptionally deadly flu and widely provide vaccines against others flus. (A universal vaccine for flu is under development.) Although a vaccine for HPV exists, it isn't used nearly often enough. I don't know if there's a vaccine for E-B, but it's not something you hear about if there is and there is no serious attempt to reduce the virus in the general population. People drop dead of multiple sclerosis, but not in large enough numbers for anyone to care.
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HPV-16 and HPV-18 can cause cancer. Although there is a vaccine, it isn't administered universally so these viruses are easily capable of staying in the population.
That's true. I asked for this vaccine and was denied... by female health professionals. And we're scarcely doing any testing, as usual, so who knows who's got it? Not everyone can even get a primary HPV test, and the WHO only recommends a single test in a woman's lifetime.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:2)
If Ebola had a 48 hour "lead time" where it could be spread before symptoms, and was airborne, it would have already ravaged the planet. But due to
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Insightful)
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Imagine a virus as infectious as the measles and as deadly as Ebola. -Bill Gates
He was just talking about the viruses that you would inevitably get on Windows due to the software being hot garbage. You really want to listen to the hot garbage operating system guy that held computing back ten years? You want his opinion on... anything?
Seriously though, more to the point even though he is right here, it's not his idea, and we were warned about a pandemic by people more worth listening to than Gates... much sooner.
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Imagine a virus as infectious as the measles and as deadly as Ebola. -Bill Gates
... And with the incubation time of AIDS.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Insightful)
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This web site disagrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Insightful)
someone has a heart problem is more likely to die but which problem killed them?
I am so sick of this ridiculous argument. Here's how to figure it out. If you had Covid and died, would you have died at the same time if you if you hadn't gotten Covid? If the answer is no then died from Covid. There's no subtlety here. The comorbidities matter only in determining your likelihood if dying but much in determining if you did "die from Covid" or not. Stop pretending this is ambiguous.
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someone has a heart problem is more likely to die but which problem killed them?
I am so sick of this ridiculous argument. Here's how to figure it out. If you had Covid and died, would you have died at the same time if you if you hadn't gotten Covid? If the answer is no then died from Covid. There's no subtlety here. The comorbidities matter only in determining your likelihood if dying but much in determining if you did "die from Covid" or not. Stop pretending this is ambiguous.
Bullets don’t kill people, organ damage and bleeding out do. Therefore no one has ever died by gunshot.
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Here's how to figure it out. If you had Covid and died, would you have died at the same time if you if you hadn't gotten Covid? If the answer is no then died from Covid.
To get an unambiguous result, are you suggesting that the experiment be repeated twice? Once with the patient infected, and once without?
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You use the opinion of doctors previously treating the patient about whether it was reasonable to expect them to die at that time. They may get it right or wrong in each single specific case, but here we are looking for the big numbers, which are what we base our response on.
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Many diseases that kill are opportunistic infections that take advantage of a badly weakened body dying from another disease. The decision about the cause of death is not as clear as you say it is.
Re:We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the virus lacerates internal organs, resulting in blood as thick as pea soup with blood clots. These tend to cause heart failure.
Viruses can trigger cancer, covid hasn't existed long enough to know whether that will be the case here.
Covid does indeed kill young healthy people. (The number of 12-15 year olds with no pre-existing condition who have died fro covid is low, but it isn't zero.) The NHS doesn't offer a breakdown in that much detail, but it is good enough for this.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus... [ons.gov.uk]
Bad luck will kill all populations equally, on average, so over long enough it'll simply average itself out.
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Now question I have, with most elderly vaccinated and STILL dying, how do we know that the thing is NOT related to vaccines and not Covid in the first place?
Testing.
Seriously, this is a question?
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Whatever distance is shorter, points with high probability to the cause.
And you don't get vaccinated during an active infection. It does not make sense to tell your immune system what proteins to fight when it has the original protein right there and fights against it. Thus the idea that someone was tested as infected and then gets the vaccine is quite strange.
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Sorry, I have no idea what you mean in the context of this thread.
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If it doesn't kill anyone, how is it deadly, exactly?
Re:We have been warned repeatedly (Score:5, Informative)
Remember that next time you have to go the hospital for some emergency just to see them them overflowing with Covid cases. That's happening right now in real time.
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Informative)
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Informative)
>I say that's false
In Quebec we have some hospitals that have transferred cases to other hospitals because of a lack of beds, we have closed ICUs, and at least one hospital is closed too, because of a lack of 'beds' or a lack of staff, staff who are sick with COVID, something else or who have quit. When an ambulance goes 60 minutes instead of 4 minutes there are consequences, when non emergency operations are cancelled it's a sign it's time to take serious preventative measures.
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-... [inspq.qc.ca] (3.1)
I guess from your reaction that maybe most of the US isn't there yet, hopefully it doesn't ever get as bad or worse.
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Don't forget:
"That'll be $4000 please."
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Except that's not how it works. We have this thing called Statistics. I know, I know, Pascal is too recent for you.
Re:We have been warned repeatedly (Score:5, Informative)
The problem seems to be more a case of increased testing rather than increased infection.
That, my friend, is a testable theory. The test is the positivity rate. If your hypothesis is correct, then the positivity rate would be falling. They're not, they're going through the roof. [jhu.edu] Those numbers are not exactly hard to find. You couldn't have taken 3 minutes to look up the data before posting a dead wrong hypothesis??
Last summer 150 people were dying each day but now it is 50.
Buenas noches, señor. What's the weather like in Spain? [worldometers.info] Back in the US [worldometers.info], the 7-day moving average of daily deaths is currently 1153.
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> as deadly as Ebola but does not kill anyone
That sounds about as dangerous as a mass brawl on an uninhabited island.
Re:We have been warned repeatedly (Score:4, Insightful)
>The problem seems to be more a case of increased testing rather than increased infection.
No. Last December in Quebec we where testing about 50 000 people a day (4.2), this year it was about the same, 50 000. Last year the cases went up to 2 750 a day for the same time period, last week they were at 10 000 cases a day, and yesterday they were up to 15 000 (1.2)
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-... [inspq.qc.ca]
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The reason the moon reflects light is *capitalism*. Gee, this game is fun, anyone can play!!
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The reason the moon reflects light is *capitalism*. Gee, this game is fun, anyone can play!!
THE REASON PEOPLE ARE LOUD ON THE INTERNET IS CAPITALIZATION.
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Or was it the hereditary monarchy one?
Re: We have been warned repeatedly (Score:2)
A good diet can prevent stroke.
Good news (Score:4, Funny)
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Trump told them to get vaccinated. They are not going to listen to Trump unless he tells them what they want to hear, i.e. what they are doing already (fuck-all).
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Part of the problem is behavioral changes (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well, mate, i'm currently traveling to Canada, i've been paying attention, not mixing with anyone, always wearing mask where it has to be, keeping distance when needed, and i still got infected (nothing serious, i'm 3-times vaccinated, last early december). Another friend of mine got infected a month ao, one who is taking care of his parents (fragile health), and thus being highly cautious with all the recommended behavior... Got it anyway...
So i'm afraid the behavior is not exactly the problem (don't get m
Re: Part of the problem is behavioral changes (Score:2)
Re:Part of the problem is behavioral changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Healthy people who can get the virus as a mild infection and can collectively stop future mutations
Healthy people who can get the virus as a mild infection can also collectively generate future mutations, or pass it on to people who will.
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Everyone doing the same thing -- taking the same vaccines -- teaches the virus through natural selection to avoid detection. That's what makes them more infectious. You want lots of different kinds of immunity, not all the same kind.
This isn't how this works. When your body encounters a vaccine, it produces antibodies. The antibodies it produces are partially randomized; that's part of why the vaccines don't do a great job of protecting everyone. So even if everyone is exposed to the same vaccine, their bodies are doing different things.
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Healthy people who can get the virus as a mild infection and can collectively stop future mutations
We cannot actually identify those types of people reliably. Some of the "old and weak" get mild cases, and some of the "young and strong" die. Sure, the percentages of the "young and strong" with serious problems are significantly smaller, but still not so small that we should not encourage everyone to take steps avoid infection.
Perhaps more importantly for this particular line of reasoning, those "healthy people who can get the virus as a mild infection" also provide present mutation opportunities. It is
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Your observations are correct but I'm afraid you have reached the wrong conclusion based on them. Everyone doing the same thing -- taking the same vaccines -- teaches the virus through natural selection to avoid detection.
Evolutionary feedback is driven by human immune response not human behavior. With a good vaccine it makes little difference whether someone is vaccinated or naturally infected. Natural infection and vaccination are both able to induce strong polyclonal responses. While omicron breakthrough is rampant for both vaccinated and prior infection protection from severe outcomes is maintained.
You want lots of different kinds of immunity, not all the same kind. Healthy people who can get the virus as a mild infection and can collectively stop future mutations are helping those who cannot afford to do so. You don't want all your eggs in one basket.
Viral drift is primarily driven by the immunocompromised. The absolute number of immunocompetent people makes very littl
Re: Part of the problem is behavioral changes (Score:4, Interesting)
No it didn't. The SAs identified it first because they were curious at the drop in lethality and so ran something other than worthless high cycle PCR tests which only tell you if you've come in contact with the virus in the last 12 weeks(per the latest from the CDC) assuming it's not a false positive from cross contamination. With how fast it spreads they don't have a clue as to the original point of mutation.
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South Africa noticed that their TaqPath PCR tests started showing massive amounts of S-gene target failure, i.e. only detected two out of three RNA segments. Long before impact on hospitalisation rates could be noticed.
Fortunately, S.A. has a decent capacity for both testing and sequencing.
Immunity (Score:2)
From what I've read (Score:5, Informative)
The highly simplified, layperson version:
- the spike protein has mutated enough that antibodies largely don't work on it
- this gives the virus time to replicate, and it does so extremely rapidly
- it prefers to replicate in the upper respiratory tract, and not as much in the lungs
- because it replicates quickly in a part of your body where you don't notice for a while, you go out and breathe it out on people
- but antibody response is only the first part of the immune response; the T-cells still recognize the infected cells and destroy them before you get too sick. This is the same principle by which cowpox confers immunity to smallpox. The viruses are different, but just similar enough that your immune system wins in the end
So you have a confluence of factors, including some human factors, and now it's everywhere.
Re:From what I've read (Score:5, Interesting)
The highly simplified, layperson version: /. : never simplify to much!
The long lesson on
- the spike protein has mutated enough that antibodies largely don't work on it
That is luckily completely wrong.
- this gives the virus time to replicate, and it does so extremely rapidly
Spread from host to host is not the same as replicate rapidly, which it does not
- it prefers to replicate in the upper respiratory tract, and not as much in the lungs
Because of your first point: the antibody protection in the lungs is much higher.
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- the spike protein has mutated enough that antibodies largely don't work on it
That is luckily completely wrong.
Not only is parent correct but Omicron managed to mutate so much the spike gene is no longer being detected in PCR tests.
https://jamanetwork.com/journa... [jamanetwork.com]
What is protecting people from Omicron is mostly B and T response not preexisting antibodies. This is why most are getting it whether they had covid before or not.
- this gives the virus time to replicate, and it does so extremely rapidly
Spread from host to host is not the same as replicate rapidly, which it does not
It does both. Replication rate is far higher and replication in the bronchus makes it more infectious.
- it prefers to replicate in the upper respiratory tract, and not as much in the lungs
Because of your first point: the antibody protection in the lungs is much higher.
It replicates 70 times faster than Delta in the bronchi.
How about some thorough journalism (Score:3)
Wow, over 70% of the attendees were infected, that sounds bad.
Since the party was in late November I expect that we know by now what percentage of the attendees were hospitalized, what percentage were severely ill, and what percentage were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms that would not have warranted a covid test if they hadn't attended a known superspreader event. Let me just read the article to find out these important percentages that are crucial to making informed decisions about the severity of the situation.
Hmm, no details at all. That's a pity. I wonder if there are any journalists at NPR who could ask some questions and fill in the missing information.
My local school district just announced that they are going to "minimum session days" due to "the spike in covid rates". I.e 100% of students will arrive in school every morning and 100% of students will be sent home early. Five days a week for at least the first half of January. Is covid more infectious in the afternoons? I love science, but I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the science in the news reporting and public policy around covid in 2021/2022.
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Maybe because its a cold virus (Score:2)
So lets test something and if it works... (Score:2)
..we'll shelve it.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
on an unrelated note, there is a climate change concern going on regarding populations' contribution to CO2 Emissions.
if reducing population can stop global warming
How would you do it?
Lightning speed? (Score:3)
Obviously the virus comes though with the 5G signals, duh!
what is imoprtant is that... (Score:3)
This COULD be the virus that acts more like a global vaccine, assuming that majority of ppl will get a regular vaccine.
The real problem is that we are overloading the medical systems in every nation.
Answer is easy (Score:3)
Omicron is a highly contagious variant that lacks the spike protein current vaccines target. Since any mask other than an N95 or better is worthless at stopping aerosolized particles, no one really has any defense. After a year of Covid fatigue, people arenâ(TM)t willing to stay home.
Re:that what happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry but the vaccines, (I've taken both Moderna shots and a booster dose) don't keep you from being infected with the SARS-CoV2 virus and they were never presented as being able to; they are however 90+ % effective at preventing severe COVID19 disease. The government and big pharma did however frame numerous statements in a way that were purposely crafted to lead people to naively think that the vaccine would prevent infections rather than just severe disease.
I haven't seen any evidence that the omicron ev
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trolls.
do not feed
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ya.
u b u.
r i p
Re:that what happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
rember these vaccines don't block anything so why is this a surprise.
Remember vaccines don't block anything, they only train your immune system so you have to be infected before the results of the infection can be relevant. But also remember that this is how all vaccines work and so also remember if you get near a point, make it. I know you tried, but you failed.
Re:that what happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the sense that a vaccinated body is capable of responding to a low viral load fast enough that the infection never takes hold, then vaccines do indeed block. They don't block you from getting the viral load, but they CAN block a low viral load from invading enough cells to actually result in you having covid.
Re:that what happens. (Score:4, Informative)
In the sense that a vaccinated body is capable of responding to a low viral load fast enough that the infection never takes hold, then vaccines do indeed block.
What does "takes hold" mean? Because the infection can persist in your body for fairly long periods without doing any damage, and you can transmit it to others, proving that the infection has not been blocked. All that's been done is keep it at a sufficiently low level that it doesn't cause harm. That's not nothing, and I'm vaccinated (no booster yet, but will most likely get one soon) but it is not blocking infection. That is NOT what vaccines do by ANY definition. That you're still arguing about it proves that you're engaging in some kind of magical thinking.
They don't block you from getting the viral load, but they CAN block a low viral load from invading enough cells to actually result in you having covid.
No, they explicitly do not do that. "Having covid" means "being infected with covid" and vaccines explicitly do not do that, so stop saying they do that. That's not what vaccines do at all. An N95 respirator properly fitted can block covid. A vaccine can NOT.
Words have meanings, and you don't seem to know what they are. Further, your confusion is leading you to post misleading, incorrect, and frankly actively dangerous information. You're doing harm when you think you're helping by simplifying things. But some things can only be reduced in complexity so far before you're talking nonsense. The world is a complicated place, and you're doing no one any favors by lying to them.
Re:that what happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
The language laymen use to discuss a technical topic like this is always hopelessly inexact and especially in the case of COVID and vaccination, misleading.
To a layman "prevents infection" suggest that a vaccine shuts down every single virion that enters your body dead in its tracks, but of course that's not the way vaccines work. In research a fuzzy notion like "prevents infection" always gets boiled down to some kind of concrete empirical measure; sometimes it's developing identifiable symptoms, other times it's having consistently negative lab tests. So research will show certain numbers of people being prevented from "being infected with COVID", but that doesn't mean what laymen *think* it means.
The practical implication of this misunderstanding isn't just that laymen get it "wrong", like they're being marked on a test. It's that they make incorrect inferences, like this: if people can still be infected after getting the vaccine, the vaccine can't be doing anything useful.
The idea that masks prevent every single virion entering your body is probably just as inaccurate as the idea that vaccines stop every single virion before it can do anything. Masks of any sort are never 100% effective at prevent virus from entering your body, but the amount of virus that gets in matters. It's like sparking a fire; a single spark can in theory start a fire, but it is highly unlikely. When you strike a flint, you spray hundreds if not thousands of sparks on the fuel, and usually you have to strike several times before there's enough fuel burning to sustain the fire.
Thinking that masks work by perfectly preventing virions from entering or exiting your body is also conducive to making invalid inferences -- e.g. if people who are conscientious with masks can still get sick, then the masks must be doing nothing.
Re:that what happens. (Score:4, Interesting)
Thinking that masks work by perfectly preventing virions from entering or exiting your body is also conducive to making invalid inferences -- e.g. if people who are conscientious with masks can still get sick, then the masks must be doing nothing.
Unfortunately the lack of detailed understanding of how the world works extends to conscientious mask wearing. Omicron is highly aerosolized to the point it will drift through the air like smoke and affect people tens of yards/meters away indoors at least minutes, maybe up to hours later. The only reason masks are effective at all in directly preventing infection in the wearer is if they have a good filter and are fitted properly so as to not leak. Medical professionals are tested before being assigned a mask type where they use an extremely strong smelling substance that is filtered so the wearer can determine if even a tiny leak exists. It may require removal of facial hair and the use of tape to secure in some cases. In reality, most mask wearers don’t even wear a mask with actual filtration, much less test if it leaks and thus are less effective to useless compared to how medical professionals use them.
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Yes, it's a complicated situation. Cloth masks were high effective for ancestral SARS-COV-2 if everyone wore them, even if the fit wasn't perfect, because the bulk of the risk was through droplet transmission, not true aerosols. Omicron is a game changer. It's not that cloth masks are useless; droplets are still a problem; but if you have at-risk people you're protecting at home you'll need to up your mask game.
Re: that what happens. (Score:4, Informative)
Cloth masks were never effective because Covid was always spread through the air via aerosol - see the following from March 2020 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Cloth masks were never effective because Covid was always spread through the air via aerosol
Cloth masks were always effective at reducing spread because viral load matters.
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Studies in Bangladesh showed villages where the residents were supplied with standard surgical masks or N95 and were trained in proper donning, wearing and doffing had statistically significant reduction in COVID19 spread where cloth masks villages or no mask villages were not.
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Omicron is highly aerosolized to the point it will drift through the air like smoke and affect people tens of yards/meters away indoors at least minutes, maybe up to hours later.
Peer-reviewed Citation, please?
Omicron is new, and peer review takes time, here [cdc.gov] is a pre-print.
Re:that what happens. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: that what happens. (Score:4, Informative)
Having COVID does NOT mean getting infected with SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 is to HIV as COVID is to AIDS. Most people infected with SARS-CoV-2 never acquire COVID, and those numbers are even smaller for the vaccinated.
Re: that what happens. (Score:5, Insightful)
The mRNA therapeutics train your body to identify a single point, the spike protein. This means they are almost completely useless when that point of identification changes.
The spike protein is what makes Covid-19 dangerous. That's why it was targeted. If the spike protein changes enough that your immune system doesn't recognize it, odds are good that it won't work any more and Covid will be less dangerous. That doesn't mean that it won't be dangerous, or that we won't need a new vaccine, but it will probably mean that we will have some relative leisure to develop the next vaccine, targeting another feature.
Even if it doesn't mean that, that doesn't mean that targeting the spike protein was a bad decision. They have to target something.
Consequently, while what you said was technically correct, it was also misleading. Further, it was not a reasonable response to the comment to which you replied, which suggests that you were running around with what you thought was a hot coal of information, that could bring fire to the masses, and if you didn't drop it rapidly you'd burn your fingers. But none of that was true; it was something we knew going in, and not a reasonable objection at all.
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The spike protein is not what makes the virus dangerous. It is what makes it dock to your body cells and makes it abele to penetrate the cell walls - Oh on /. I have to write cell membranes - as some idiotic nitpickers don't grasp that laymen do not know the difference (so do I :P )
Also the spike protein is what antibodies target easily. Actually: antibodies basically always only target spike proteins, as that is the only thing they see if there is a virus in front of them.
Imagine a porcupine, ofc you can t
The Wuhan researchers were very clever (Score:3)
but not perfect. They did an amazing job of engineering the first spike protein, and changed the world with their research. But once there were a few billion infected people (and thus millions of billions of virons) natural selection beat them, and produced an even better spike protein.
The question arises as to what would happen if this new spike protein were further optimized in the lab to totally avoid the immune system? Or was combined with a more virulent backbone? Or started to attack the immune sys
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The spike protein is not what makes the virus dangerous. It is what makes it dock to your body cells and makes it abele to penetrate the cell walls
Your second sentence is the ideal counter-response to your first sentence, yet you wrote the one as if it supported the other instead of directly contradicting it. That's a bit inexplicable.
Re: that what happens. (Score:4, Informative)
This is misinformation [abc13.com]. I assume by "real vaccine" you mean something similar to natural immunity due to Covid exposure. But the mRNA vaccines are actually more effective against omicron than natural immunity from previous exposure to other variants. This is probably because the mRNA vaccines provoke such a strong response that the strength of the response outweighs the reduced sensitivity to the mutated virus.
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I assume by "real vaccine" you mean something similar to natural immunity due to Covid exposure.
Yeah, I assumed the same thing. They don't seem to have noticed that the "real vaccines" are the least effective so far, while the mRNA types are the most effective. That may change in the future, but so far that's how it's played out.
Re: that what happens. (Score:3)
China has COVID under control, and their Sinovac vaccine is not mRNA.
Meanwhile, 100% vaccinated populations elsewhere are still catching Omicron like crazy.
The evidence so far does not indicate that Sinovac is more effective than the mRNA vaccines against omicron:
https://qz.com/2107603/are-sinovac-and-sinopharm-effective-against-omicron/ [qz.com]
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/sinovac-covid-19-shot-with-pfizer-booster-less-effective-against-omicron-study-2021-12-31/ [reuters.com]
So if China really is avoiding Omicron outbreaks (I couldn't find numbers quickly), you may need to look for https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... [slashdot.org]">some other explanation.
Re: that what happens. (Score:2)
* https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... [nytimes.com]
Re: that what happens. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is probably because the mRNA vaccines provoke such a strong response that the strength of the response outweighs the reduced sensitivity to the mutated virus.
Even though a visible response is different from actual immune response, this is why I was a bit nervous at not getting even the slightest side effects from my first mRNA shot, and why I didn’t feel much better barely getting any symptoms from my second. I’ve been hit by a car on my bicycle which launched me into getting knocked out when I hit the pavement, fallen 10m/30ft out of a tree hitting branches on the way down, and gotten blasted unconscious landing on my head from 10’/3m going about 40mph/65kph in a skiing accident but none of that was as bad as my third shot. My arm felt like it had been crushed to paste by a hydraulic press for perhaps 6 hours straight - crazy searing pain. But I felt good knowing that I finally had a decent visible immune response.
I know perhaps 500 people as casual acquaintances or better, about 2/3 now vaxed, with 4 deaths from covid all in unvaxxed people. Another who lived (so far) had their brain and lungs cooked to the point it’s hard to even watch something that hellish made real, can’t imagine living it. One person did have a severe reaction to the second Moderna shot, got nasty hives all over their body, face, even inside mucus membrane areas, about a week after that persisted for months and was only beaten back by monoclonal antibody treatment, but it did resolve. Even so they were still willing to consult an expert to see if another vaccine booster would be safe and effective for them. Even ignoring the science, anecdotally I’ll take the vaccine over those hellish outcomes even if it’s just about 1% of the people I know.
Re: that what happens. (Score:5, Interesting)
My arm felt like it had been crushed to paste by a hydraulic press for perhaps 6 hours straight - crazy searing pain. But I felt good knowing that I finally had a decent visible immune response.
I had a fever for one evening after my second shot. 3 500 mg acetominiphen knocked it out. The booster didn't have much of any reaction. That's okay, I'm not very certain that the level of protection is related to any reaction.
I know perhaps 500 people as casual acquaintances or better, about 2/3 now vaxed, with 4 deaths from covid all in unvaxxed people. Another who lived (so far) had their brain and lungs cooked to the point it’s hard to even watch something that hellish made real, can’t imagine living it.
I know of a couple deaths here just recently One an older guy, and one, a healthy 55 year old friend who didn't need no vaccine for a cold. Both have permanent immunity now.
Two other guys who had all the reasons not to get vaccinated. Politics, tough guy syndrome, vaccinated people are sheeple.
But survived after running up about a million in hospital expenses, are on 24/7 oxygen because Covid destroyed their lungs, and both have brain fog. I'm predicting they'll be dead within a year. 24/7 oxygen doesn't bode well.
I think I'd rather have a death outcome than the slow motion drowning with a destroyed intellect that just prolongs the dying.
But hey, they were all smarter than the sheeple, so had to believe that their death was a 100 percent acceptable outcome.
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They might block you from an expensive trip to the ICU. As is everything medical, there's a probability distribution involved. That makes your statement patently false from the get-go.
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No, it doesn't. The vaccines are stimulating your immune system. Since most people's immune system works the same way, the virus is simply targeting a stable adversary. It is outcompeting the Delta variant because its mutations have allowed for greater, faster spread. The mutations are more or less random, it isn't targeting a vaccine.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a half-baked analogy, because the immune system is nondeterministic i.e; persons A and B given vaccine F do not necessarily have the same immune response. Anti-bodies are generated "randomly", so you've no idea which specific part of antigen folks respond to. Sure, they've both been introduced to the same RNA sequence, but that doesn't mean the antibodies they produce will be for the same stretch of the protein it codes for. This also contributes to why the vaccine can be more or less effective acro
Re: (Score:2)
This is a half-baked analogy, because the immune system is nondeterministic i.e; persons A and B given vaccine F do not necessarily have the same immune response.
a) that is wrong - until you have a weird definition of "same response"
b) that is completely and definitely wrong regarding mRNA vaccines
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
... and inoculating huge swaths of the public with the same vaccine is its data training set.
Now does that answer your question about why the latest mutation is infecting so quickly?
Alpha came from Britain, before vaccines were even a thing. Delta came from then poorly vaccinated India, Gamma from poorly vaccinated Brazil, and both Beta and Omicron from poorly vaccinated Africa.
When new mutations pop up in highly vaccinated countries like Canada or Israel then I'll consider your theory.
Re:A virus is a pattern-matching AI ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have never mass vaccinated during the pandemic of either one. This is in fact the first case in human history when mass vaccination occurs during the pandemic.
Re: Gee, wonder why (Score:2)
Yet where did omicron likely originate? Vaccine hesitancy in the west certainly doesn't help, but without some kind of world dictatorship it's an intractable problem regardless.
Re: Gee, wonder why (Score:2)
Or we could all go Madagascar I guess, everyone building proper walls and making easy travel and border hopping impossible.
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