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leftyjace said:
Omicron is the real deal.
Less than 2 weeks after it was first detected in South Africa, and it is now the dominant strain accounting for 76% of cases sequenced there. (Less than 1% of cases get sequenced.)
So… it looks like it will overtake Delta fairly quickly as the dominant strain.
Here’s hoping the vaccine efficacy against Omicron is high.
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If it becomes the Omicron Persei 8 variant, we are all doomed.
 
Reportedly highly contagious but less severe symptoms with quicker recovery time. Symptoms include elvated heart rate and extreme fatigue. No loss of smell and taste associated with this variant.
 
Scat said:
Reportedly highly contagious but less severe symptoms with quicker recovery time. Symptoms include elvated heart rate and extreme fatigue. No loss of smell and taste associated with this variant.
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Damn, could be a good thing?
 
The scary thing is how fast and crazy this thing is mutating, imo. I am sure someone will point out that the flu and other viruses change every year, but with the global impact this has already had every mutation is a big deal. All it needs is to mutate a hemorrhagic factor or some such **** and we will see a true reduction in the population from this thing.

Welcome to the new normal.
 
LogGrad98 said:
The scary thing is how fast and crazy this thing is mutating, imo. I am sure someone will point out that the flu and other viruses change every year, but with the global impact this has already had every mutation is a big deal. All it needs is to mutate a hemorrhagic factor or some such **** and we will see a true reduction in the population from this thing.

Welcome to the new normal.
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That is scary because until this thing came about corona viruses were thought to be quite stable and not prone to mutation.

I honestly think best case scenario, other than having a highly effective vaccine against every possible variant that is administered to nearly 90% of the world population, is that an extremely infectious variant with very mild symptoms becomes dominate and flames itself out. That or a very suboptimal second situation where an extremely deadly and fast acting variant also flames itself out by killing people very shortly after they become infectious so that it also flames out, but in this scenario with many people dead.

All that said, I'm not a virologist and I really don't know **** about how this stuff works or how it would actually play out.
 
Gameface said:
That is scary because until this thing came about corona viruses were thought to be quite stable and not prone to mutation.

I honestly think best case scenario, other than having a highly effective vaccine against every possible variant that is administered to nearly 90% of the world population, is that an extremely infectious variant with very mild symptoms becomes dominate and flames itself out. That or a very suboptimal second situation where an extremely deadly and fast acting variant also flames itself out by killing people very shortly after they become infectious so that it also flames out, but in this scenario with many people dead.

All that said, I'm not a virologist and I really don't know **** about how this stuff works or how it would actually play out.
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Those are both of the scenarios that keep me from beating Plague, Inc. on the hardest levels.
 
Gameface said:
That is scary because until this thing came about corona viruses were thought to be quite stable and not prone to mutation.

I honestly think best case scenario, other than having a highly effective vaccine against every possible variant that is administered to nearly 90% of the world population, is that an extremely infectious variant with very mild symptoms becomes dominate and flames itself out. That or a very suboptimal second situation where an extremely deadly and fast acting variant also flames itself out by killing people very shortly after they become infectious so that it also flames out, but in this scenario with many people dead.

All that said, I'm not a virologist and I really don't know **** about how this stuff works or how it would actually play out.
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I’m not an expert either. But From what I’ve read on NPR and the Wash Post, this is exactly the best case scenario. Either we get to such a vaccination rate that it becomes a seasonal epidemic or it mutates into something less severe. So despite not being an expert I do think you’re correctly explaining what experts hope for.
 
LogGrad98 said:
The scary thing is how fast and crazy this thing is mutating, imo. I am sure someone will point out that the flu and other viruses change every year, but with the global impact this has already had every mutation is a big deal. All it needs is to mutate a hemorrhagic factor or some such **** and we will see a true reduction in the population from this thing.
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It will not ever mutate into a hemorrhagic fever and it is not mutating fast or crazy. It is so confined in its mutations that the vaccine made against the original 2019 strain still works against all known variants. We don't know of any that can beat the vaccines we already have and there don't seem to be any new changes we haven't seen. There are only about 50 spots on the spike that can mutate without the virus becoming incompatible with humans. The mutations in the Omicron variant aren't new, only the collection is. For instance, one of the Omicron mutations is N501Y. That means at the 501st position of the spike protein the N (asparagine) amino acid of the original 2019 Wuhan COVID19 was replaced by a Y (tyrosine) amino acid. That exact same N501Y mutation was present in the Alpha (a.k.a. UK variant), Beta variant, Gamma, and Delta variant. Of all the mutations in Omicron, I do not believe there is a single one that has not been seen before in other variants.

The variations we are seeing is like taking a random number of cards out of a deck of cards. The collection in your hand may be unique but it is made up from the same 52 cards you have already seen. No matter how many times you draw a new collection you aren't going to find something crazy like a Uno Draw-4 card appear in your hand.
 
Al-O-Meter said:
It will not ever mutate into a hemorrhagic fever and it is not mutating fast or crazy. It is so confined in its mutations that the vaccine made against the original 2019 strain still works against all known variants. We don't know of any that can beat the vaccines we already have and there don't seem to be any new changes we haven't seen. There are only about 50 spots on the spike that can mutate without the virus becoming incompatible with humans. The mutations in the Omicron variant aren't new, only the collection is. For instance, one of the Omicron mutations is N501Y. That means at the 501st position of the spike protein the N (asparagine) amino acid of the original 2019 Wuhan COVID19 was replaced by a Y (tyrosine) amino acid. That exact same N501Y mutation was present in the Alpha (a.k.a. UK variant), Beta variant, Gamma, and Delta variant. Of all the mutations in Omicron, I do not believe there is a single one that has not been seen before in other variants.

The variations we are seeing is like taking a random number of cards out of a deck of cards. The collection in your hand may be unique but it is made up from the same 52 cards you have already seen. No matter how many times you draw a new collection you aren't going to find something crazy like a Uno Draw-4 card appear in your hand.
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Remember when I mentioned that someone would feel the need to explain virus mutation?

Remember, I'm sure there was an amphibian somewhere that said "nah, no way that guy will ever develop teeth and eat all of us". Nature finds a way.
 
When "your team" makes a doctor an enemy for speaking out about keeping people safe from a virus you've got to know you're one of the bad guys...
 
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