Coronavirus

[Deleted member 365]

 

[lauriandres]

Interesting perspective regarding the hysteria about the new variant (omicron) that the media is creating. I have spoken with 3 people this week (my wife and 2 co workers including one when I got to work today) about the new variant. I mostly just listened and didn't talk much as I usually do regarding something that could be seen as political or triggering to people. All 3 seemed to think that this new variant is not a big deal and 2 of them even thought that the new variant might be a good thing in the long run. (I think Al o meter said something similar). None of them were scared or worried. Maybe they just arent watching the right news sources or something but it doesn't seem like there is any hysteria or even mild fear going on in my interactions with people about the new variant. Since the media is only trying to scare everyone and create hysteria I wonder where they are getting their info to make them so unafraid.

So is it fake news then , that a lot of countries are banning people from certain countries from Africa and for example Japan and Israel have again fully closed the borders? IMHO that is a hysterical reaction.
I guess it is pretty certain that i will not visit Japan in 2022 :-(. Originally i had plans (in the beginning of 2020) to visit Japan in 2021, then 2022. While i and my wife and daughter like (and miss) Japan as tourist destination, i am certainly not spending my tourism related budget for a country, which currently is paranoid and treats a healthy person like a witch.

I remember when in Estonia similar people like Thriller were pointing fingers in style "please do not be like eastern europeans, be like Scandinavian countries or like Germany or Austria, which have better vaccination rates and therefore more freedoms" in august and september.
Well, everybody can see the infection numbers now as they are what they are in Europe.
Obviously, it would be good for science, if there would be specified how many of those who got positive PCR, are having any symptoms (which reduce the quality of life) or not. At least in Estonia no one from a health department etc has not called me a la "Hello Lauri, we noticed that you had two borderline PCR tests while living together with somebody who got positive tests and had symptoms. Can we take some blood samples and make other measurements to see if there are any correlation about blood group, genes etc to determine what is (or not) influencing the covid infection?".
Now even Christmas market is banned in Germany for people who are not vaccinated :-(.

 

[Gameface]

So is it fake news then , that a lot of countries are banning people from certain countries from Africa and for example Japan and Israel have again fully closed the borders? IMHO that is a hysterical reaction.
I guess it is pretty certain that i will not visit Japan in 2022 :-(. Originally i had plans (in the beginning of 2020) to visit Japan in 2021, then 2022. While i and my wife and daughter like (and miss) Japan as tourist destination, i am certainly not spending my tourism related budget for a country, which currently is paranoid and treats a healthy person like a witch.

I remember when in Estonia similar people like Thriller were pointing fingers in style "please do not be like eastern europeans, be like Scandinavian countries or like Germany or Austria, which have better vaccination rates and therefore more freedoms" in august and september.
Well, everybody can see the infection numbers now as they are what they are in Europe.
Obviously, it would be good for science, if there would be specified how many of those who got positive PCR, are having any symptoms (which reduce the quality of life) or not. At least in Estonia no one from a health department etc has not called me a la "Hello Lauri, we noticed that you had two borderline PCR tests while living together with somebody who got positive tests and had symptoms. Can we take some blood samples and make other measurements to see if there are any correlation about blood group, genes etc to determine what is (or not) influencing the covid infection?".
Now even Christmas market is banned in Germany for people who are not vaccinated :-(.

Well, yes and no.

I mean a new variant is confirmed and people want to know more about it. Until they do know more about it they'll likely want to limit the spread of the new variant. We're still not vary good at surgically limiting spread, we have what at best might be described as a shotgun approach. Cut off travel from the best known source but don't do much to track individuals and contract trace and that sort of thing. China is actually worlds better at this type of thing than any other major nation, which is a direct result of their overbearing and authoritarian type of government.

I think pretty quickly the consensus will be that it's better to have Omicron spread through our communities than Delta and these restrictions will go away. No one is going to say that they actually want people to get Omicron if they are going to get COVID at all, but I bet within two months it will be obvious that the powers that be are fine with the rapid spread of Omicron amongst those who are basically going to get sick one way or another because they aren't going to get vaccinated aren't going to wear masks and aren't going to take precautions about the people they come in close contact with.

I bet the "hysteria" is over a week and a day from now.

 

[lauriandres]

Well, yes and no.

I mean a new variant is confirmed and people want to know more about it. Until they do know more about it they'll likely want to limit the spread of the new variant. We're still not vary good at surgically limiting spread, we have what at best might be described as a shotgun approach. Cut off travel from the best known source but don't do much to track individuals and contract trace and that sort of thing. China is actually worlds better at this type of thing than any other major nation, which is a direct result of their overbearing and authoritarian type of government.

I think pretty quickly the consensus will be that it's better to have Omicron spread through our communities than Delta and these restrictions will go away. No one is going to say that they actually want people to get Omicron if they are going to get COVID at all, but I bet within two months it will be obvious that the powers that be are fine with the rapid spread of Omicron amongst those who are basically going to get sick one way or another because they aren't going to get vaccinated aren't going to wear masks and aren't going to take precautions about the people they come in close contact with.

I bet the "hysteria" is over a week and a day from now.

Gameface,

By "hysteria" i meant mainly border closures and other major restrictions by the government. Otherwise it is getting quiet (at least in local media in my country).

The conspiracy theorist inside me guess , that either the published numbers in China are wrong (actually the numbers are huge) or the numbers are real (i.e tiny compared to Europe and USA) and worst case they know something (considering the restrictions they have), which is still unknown for Western science world. China is LARGE and considering specially the delta variant and the combination of widespread business that China does (and therefore a lot of business travel), i find it hard to believe that everything is fine and dandy in all provinces. We only hear about major swift lockdowns, but not minor ones.

Are there any stats, articles, complaints etc in USA media about whether the tourism industry in USA is suffering or not? I.e does big tourism related companies demand something like "please open the borders fully, we miss the money that is brought by foreign tourists"?

 

[LogGrad98]

For ***** and giggles I decided to go to yahoo.com just to see what pops up and see if there are a bunch of articles freaking out about a new variant with the intention to cause panic and hysteria.

First article was actually interesting: https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-school-shooting-more-threats-125304621.html

First article about the new variant was the 26th article after scrolling way down. (the 15 article was about jeff epsteins pilot naming names of celebs who flew on his airplane. Even though the media doesn't want us to know about this).
Here is the article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/omicron-cases-confirmed-3-u-214715369.html Some highlights from the article that will probably induce panic and hysteria (proceed with caution).

The Colorado case was found in an Arapahoe County woman who traveled throughout southern Africa and returned late last week, per Axios' John Frank.

• The woman was vaccinated but had not received a booster shot. She also wore a mask in her travels, officials said. She is experiencing mild systems and is quarantining.
• She developed symptoms after returning home and no cases of community transmission are anticipated.

Super scary right?

More scary stuff from the article:
"This was expected news," Gov. Jared Polis said in a briefing Thursday.

• "Any variant that is so prevalent in the world as the omicron variant is, we knew it wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when it was identified in Colorado."

Hochul stressed that there was no cause to panic, but urged New Yorkers to wear masks indoors and receive their vaccinations and boosters.

Simply terrifying.

Ok come clean, did you get more ***** or more giggles out of that?

 

[LogGrad98]

Well, yes and no.

I mean a new variant is confirmed and people want to know more about it. Until they do know more about it they'll likely want to limit the spread of the new variant. We're still not vary good at surgically limiting spread, we have what at best might be described as a shotgun approach. Cut off travel from the best known source but don't do much to track individuals and contract trace and that sort of thing. China is actually worlds better at this type of thing than any other major nation, which is a direct result of their overbearing and authoritarian type of government.

I think pretty quickly the consensus will be that it's better to have Omicron spread through our communities than Delta and these restrictions will go away. No one is going to say that they actually want people to get Omicron if they are going to get COVID at all, but I bet within two months it will be obvious that the powers that be are fine with the rapid spread of Omicron amongst those who are basically going to get sick one way or another because they aren't going to get vaccinated aren't going to wear masks and aren't going to take precautions about the people they come in close contact with.

I bet the "hysteria" is over a week and a day from now.

I wonder what level of immunity anyone who gets any of these variants develop naturally against COVID when they are better. And I wonder if this is effective against all variants. I seem to remember something about natural immunity for those who had COVID was pretty ineffectual, like a 50/50 shot you could get it again anyway.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

I wonder what level of immunity anyone who gets any of these variants develop naturally against COVID when they are better. And I wonder if this is effective against all variants. I seem to remember something about natural immunity for those who had COVID was pretty ineffectual, like a 50/50 shot you could get it again anyway.

It depends entirely on the immune system and health of the person who was infected. There is no single number and at this point it appears everyone or nearly everyone is susceptible to infection/reinfection regardless of vaccination or prior infection. The primary effect of vaccination or prior infection is to moderate the symptoms of a COVID infection. It probably won't stop an infection but it does great at keeping you out of the hospital or worse if you do become infected. The more recent your prior infection or vaccination, the less severe symptoms will be.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

I wonder what level of immunity anyone who gets any of these variants develop naturally against COVID when they are better. And I wonder if this is effective against all variants. I seem to remember something about natural immunity for those who had COVID was pretty ineffectual, like a 50/50 shot you could get it again anyway.

All of that will be important, but at least in the USA, at this point most people have either had the virus or the vaccine.

The big question is how sick will people get from Omicron. As long as we don't overwhelm the hospitals, and death rates aren't increasing, then it won't be a big deal.

 

[gandalfe]

All of that will be important, but at least in the USA, at this point most people have either had the virus or the vaccine.

Do you have any research that shows that, or is it just a gut feeling?

 

[Deleted member 365]

Have any of your read about possible theories of how this variant came about?

I was listening to this NPR article and this one scientist believes it came from an immunocompromised person. Because their system couldn't kill off the virus, it just stayed inside of them for weeks and week mutating and mutating. Because it lived inside one host for so long, it was able to make so mutations that other viruses wouldn't have had time to make. Then it spread to another host.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

Do you have any research that shows that, or is it just a gut feeling?

Well we know 60% of Americans are fully vaccinated, so that alone says most people are either vaccinated or have the vaccine. Another 40MM Americans have had at least one dose.

Unfortunately I am not sure there is data to reflect how many people that have had COVID are also vaccinated. We know that reported cases are a much lower number than people that have actually had COVID, especially because many people with COVID never feel sick. Nature published an article estimating 100MM or 1/3 of the U.S. population had COVID by the end of 2020. That number of course would be much higher with the high rate of infections in 2021, especially because it wasn't widespread in early 2020. So conservatively close to 100MM have had the virus, and possible double, and 197MM have been fully vaccinated. The US population is 330MM.

Of course there is overlap with those vaccinated and either prior infection or infection after vaccination.

 

[gandalfe]

Well we know 60% of Americans are fully vaccinated, so that alone says most people are either vaccinated or have the vaccine. Another 40MM Americans have had at least one dose.

Unfortunately I am not sure there is data to reflect how many people that have had COVID are also vaccinated. We know that reported cases are a much lower number than people that have actually had COVID, especially because many people with COVID never feel sick. Nature published an article estimating 100MM or 1/3 of the U.S. population had COVID by the end of 2020. That number of course would be much higher with the high rate of infections in 2021, especially because it wasn't widespread in early 2020. So conservatively close to 100MM have had the virus, and possible double, and 197MM have been fully vaccinated. The US population is 330MM.

Of course there is overlap with those vaccinated and either prior infection or infection after vaccination.

That... yeah, that's math. I wasn't thinking, sorry.

But, man, that statement was definitely misleading. Like that guy on the Warriors who talked about the night he and Chamberlain combined for 102 points.