How can there not be a COVID-19 thread?

[SuperMatt]

Here is one. It's a small study out of South Africa pointing to better protection against Delta:

Omicron infection appears to protect against Covid delta variant and could displace it, South Africa study finds

If omicron also proves less severe than delta, Covid infections could prove less disruptive to society, according to South African scientists.

www.cnbc.com

Interesting. They don’t seem to be saying Omicron exposure gives more immunity than Delta exposure. I think they are saying omicron exposure + vaccine might give better resistance to Delta. Plus, it’s only 13 people.

 

[User.45]

Is over-vaccinating really an issue?

Without going through the entire article. As I said before, the booster shots' value depends on their timing relative to waves. So yes, *boosting* at the the end of a huge wave is a poor strategic choice.

Experts warn dishing out fourth jabs in spring may be pointless

EXCLUSIVE: Experts have warned against offer a second Covid booster arguing it is not practical to do so every three months. Claims of Omicron as a 'natural vaccine' are debatable experts say.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Also, I see it mainly in non-US press about Omicron being the thing that ends the pandemic because 1) everyone is going to get it, vaccinated or not and 2) it confers better immunity then previous strains.

Thoughts?

It boils down to what we consider "the pandemic". COVID is here to stay, like influenza. With Omicron, I suspect we are bound to reach full coverage in terms of exposure, either through vaccine, infection, or both. Cellular immunity defends against severe disease, lasts longer, and is much harder to monitor and predict. "Better immunity" can mean many things, lower risk of reinfection? Longer durability? Or some surrogate markers like higher antibody titers, or better antibody crosstalk among strains? If we knew the answer to these questions already, it would mean we have the validated biomarkers that I mentioned.

 

[Roller]

The only Omicron characteristic on which there's near-universal agreement is that it is extremely transmissible compared to Delta, prior variants of concern, and the original strain. Conditions that wouldn't have been too problematic previously (e.g., being indoors with people who are using masks that are poor and/or not worn properly, which is common) now pose a risk of infection. Hence the rapidly rising number of people with symptoms who are flooding emergency departments and testing centers, as well as massively overburdened inpatient units and ICUs that are coping with shortages caused by infected and departing staff. This means less care for all the other illnesses that require it.

That many people with Omicron COVID-19 will have mild or even no symptoms is helpful, but won't by itself avert the above. And even some individuals without severe disease will suffer from long-COVID. That's why pronouncements like Marco Rubio's “people in the hospital for car accidents testing positive isn’t a surge” are dangerous and idiotic. Does he think hospitals are overcrowded because they're admitting patients just because they're COVID-positive?

It may turn out that Omicron confers greater immune protection than other SARS-CoV-2 variants, but it's far too early to say and shouldn't be counted upon, as attractive as that may be.

 

[User.45]

The only Omicron characteristic on which there's near-universal agreement is that it is extremely transmissible compared to Delta, prior variants of concern, and the original strain. Conditions that wouldn't have been too problematic previously (e.g., being indoors with people who are using masks that are poor and/or not worn properly, which is common) now pose a risk of infection. Hence the rapidly rising number of people with symptoms who are flooding emergency departments and testing centers, as well as massively overburdened inpatient units and ICUs that are coping with shortages caused by infected and departing staff. This means less care for all the other illnesses that require it.

That many people with Omicron COVID-19 will have mild or even no symptoms is helpful, but won't by itself avert the above. And even some individuals without severe disease will suffer from long-COVID. That's why pronouncements like Marco Rubio's “people in the hospital for car accidents testing positive isn’t a surge” are dangerous and idiotic. Does he think hospitals are overcrowded because they're admitting patients just because they're COVID-positive?

It may turn out that Omicron confers greater immune protection than other SARS-CoV-2 variants, but it's far too early to say and shouldn't be counted upon, as attractive as that may be.

And COVID kills by saturating hospital capacities. So even a "milder" variant can punch above it's weight by just depleting healthcare resources.

The healthcare staffing shortage is insane at this point. Meanwhile the hospital's COVID admissions quadrupled in a month. My wife is offered extra ICU shifts for double pay at this point, and we had to deviate from my research protocol because of lack of staff too. Yet, my neighborhood had NYE parties like nothing's going on.

 

[Eric]

And COVID kills by saturating hospital capacities. So even a "milder" variant can punch above it's weight by just depleting healthcare resources.

The healthcare staffing shortage is insane at this point. Meanwhile the hospital's COVID admissions quadrupled in a month. My wife is offered extra ICU shifts for double pay at this point, and we had to deviate from my research protocol because of lack of staff too. Yet, my neighborhood had NYE parties like nothing's going on.

And so many are out there without masks nor a second thought. It's like society has just given up and succumbed to it, meanwhile they simply couldn't care less about the burden on healthcare workers. You can't imagine anyone would've knowingly signed on for such a task, this virus has shown us just how selfish so many people are, sticking their middle finger up at such simple measures. It's mind boggling frankly.

 

[Alli]

And so many are out there without masks nor a second thought. It's like society has just given up and succumbed to it, meanwhile they simply couldn't care less about the burden on healthcare workers. You can't imagine anyone would've knowingly signed on for such a task, this virus has shown us just how selfish so many people are, sticking their middle finger up at such simple measures. It's mind boggling frankly.

We went to Publix yesterday. Almost no masks. And this is in a city bordering on a thousand new cases a day.

 

[lizkat]

We went to Publix yesterday. Almost no masks. And this is in a city bordering on a thousand new cases a day.

A recipe for rapid passage of omicron, big maybe. Hope the toll on hospitals and morgues doesn't skyrocket.

 

[Thomas Veil]

I have this vision of someone going Code Blue in one hospital room, and there's no one to try to save him because they're all in another room with someone else who's going Code Blue.

 

[Roller]

I have this vision of someone going Code Blue in one hospital room, and there's no one to try to save him because they're all in another room with someone else who's going Code Blue.

Care suffers as hospitals attempt to deal with insufficient staffing by recruiting physicians, nurses, and other professionals to work in unfamiliar settings like ICUs. Try as they might, people who aren't trained and don't have the experience in providing critical care will be less effective and efficient. Eventually, the situation deteriorates to require invocation of crisis standards of care, where interventions are based on considerations such as a patient's likelihood of survival or may be withheld from all people in a particular category such as cardiac arrest.​

 

[shadow puppet]

Another variant already?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1478100261386301447/

 

[User.45]

Another variant already?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1478100261386301447/

It’s an RNA virus. RNA has the reliability of a first gen USB flash drive so mutations will happen all the time. As the article says, it takes way more to become a Variant of Concern.

 

[lizkat]

Another variant already?

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1478100261386301447/

From a French scientist, one may have hoped for a covid variant name more romantic than B16402...

 

[shadow puppet]

It’s an RNA virus. RNA has the reliability of a first gen USB flash drive so mutations will happen all the time. As the article says, it takes way more to become a Variant of Concern.

Not doubting your expertise but why is it being referred to a "variant" within that discussion thread? Or am I having a Homer moment?

 

[User.45]

Not doubting your expertise but why is it being referred to a "variant" within that discussion thread? Or am I having a Homer moment?

Variant per my definition (there isn’t really a standardized definition) only means it has a constellation of mutations that persist over generations of the virus. The persistence can imply a sort of evolutionary advantage, but it really depends on the rate of replication errors in a virus, and that’s definitely beyond my expertise. But on it’s own this info is just insufficient for the non-virologists/non-epidemiologists to be concerned about. It’s stuff that happens all the time, we just hadn’t observed it ourselves.

 

[Pumbaa]

From a French scientist, one may have hoped for a covid variant name more romantic than B16402...

Miserable. But it could kinda work. Try singing it. Just replace “Prisoner 24601” with “B16402”.

 

[JayMysteri0]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1480096747833765888/

Cyprus Finds Covid-19 Infections That Combine Delta and Omicron

A strain of Covid-19 that combines delta and omicron was found in Cyprus, according to Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology.

www.bloomberg.com

A strain of Covid-19 that combines delta and omicron was found in Cyprus, according to Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus and head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Molecular Virology.

“There are currently omicron and delta co-infections and we found this strain that is a combination of these two,” Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. The discovery was named “deltacron” due to the identification of omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, he said.

Kostrikis and his team have identified 25 such cases and the statistical analysis shows that the relative frequency of the combined infection is higher among patients hospitalized due to Covid-19 as compared to non-hospitalized patients. The sequences of the 25 deltacron cases were sent to GISAID, the international database that tracks changes in the virus, on Jan. 7.

“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” over delta and omicron, he said. But his personal view is that this strain will also be displaced by the highly contagious omicron variant.

 

[User.45]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1480096747833765888/

But his personal view is that this strain will also be displaced by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Watching evolution realtime. That said this is some (weak) corroboration of my hypothesis that Delta is still contributing to hospitalizations and there is a parallel Delta pandemic. Hospitalization rates in the Omicron era appear one fourth that of Delta. The issue is the case count is 4-fold higher too and rising.

This is the point where physicians are kindly asked to take coverage shifts to help out and non-COVID ICUs start partitioning off beds for COVID care. This is really bad, and I think the fact that I've never seen this many physicians and nurses (who are vaccinated and do wear a mask appropriately) get COVID is just telling how different Omicron's infectivity is.

People, please, upgrade your masks. You can't rely on cloth masks anymore.

 

[JayMysteri0]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1480107612284678147/

 

[Herdfan]

I don't see this happening in the US for purely political reasons.

Europe Slowly Starts to Consider Treating Covid Like the Flu

The idea has gradually been gaining traction and could prompt a re-evaluation of government strategies on dealing with the virus.

www.bloombergquint.com

 

[Eric]

I don't see this happening in the US for purely political reasons.

Europe Slowly Starts to Consider Treating Covid Like the Flu

The idea has gradually been gaining traction and could prompt a re-evaluation of government strategies on dealing with the virus.

www.bloombergquint.com

Not sure what you mean, we're already asking people to work while they have the virus. Seems to me like they're taking their lead from us.