DOOM: "Omicron Covid cases ‘doubling every two to three days’ in UK"

[d000hg]

According to DM (lefties do not read!) the Omicron variant is milder than other variants.

This is the suspicion, the data isn't complete.

What makes it a bit more complicated is that Omicron has shown a greater ability to reinfect those who have had other variants. When you catch a disease again, it is pretty normal you will have less severe symptoms. So this can skew the data in a population where many have had Covid (like the UK) "most people with Omicron have milder symptoms than most people who have Delta" even if it is actually more dangerous to those who have never had Covid.
But this is a fairly subtle point that is very hard to get across in a headline.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

We are generally dealing with less 1% of infections being reinfections. The number is so small, in fact if all we had was reinfections the virus wouldn't be transmitted enough and would die out. So yes people can get infected more than once but it's almost not worth even considering when deciding any policy.

Even with omicron the numbers out of South Africa are still less than 3% of reinfections (if I recall the number correctly but it's quite low). Omicron seems to be much more transmissible but it only appears to be evading natural immunity when you compare it to other strains.. when you look at the numbers of reinfections its still very low percentage of total infections.

That data is based on what exactly? Most people I know are getting Covid a 2nd time. Also look at how many recorded infections in total there are and you can multiply that many fold to realise this virus will keep reinfecting people.

[d000hg]

That data is based on what exactly? Most people I know are getting Covid a 2nd time.

Really? Most people I know haven't had it at all.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Really? Most people I know haven't had it at all.

Working is fully remote but every week we have at least a couple of staff off due to covid. In the local schools entire classes are catching it and taking it home. Football games are getting cancelled! I think nearly everybody will have caught at at least once by now.

[AtW]

For idiots who keep posting tulip about "200 years of viral understanding bulltulip" -

""Ferguson said, at present, however, there was very little data on the severity of disease caused by the new variant, and that it was not necessarily the case that viruses evolved to cause less severe illness – such a situation only occurs if it favours their transmission. With Covid, as “99% of transmission occurs before anybody even gets to hospital,” the severity of disease is “a very minor selection pressure”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-ferguson-says

[malvolio]

For idiots who keep posting tulip about "200 years of viral understanding bulltulip" -

""Ferguson said, at present, however, there was very little data on the severity of disease caused by the new variant, and that it was not necessarily the case that viruses evolved to cause less severe illness – such a situation only occurs if it favours their transmission. With Covid, as “99% of transmission occurs before anybody even gets to hospital,” the severity of disease is “a very minor selection pressure”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-ferguson-says

The problem with using the Grauniad as a source...

If your host is moving about and not incapacitated or at death's door , the virus will have more opportunity to spread. So a strain with a lower or slower lethality will have the evolutionary advantage.

Don't confuse Darwin with Lamarck.

But I agree the lethality of omicron is still an unknown.

[AtW]

If your host is moving about and not incapacitated or at death's door , the virus will have more opportunity to spread. So a strain with a lower or slower lethality will have the evolutionary advantage.

“99% of transmission occurs before anybody even gets to hospital,” the severity of disease is “a very minor selection pressure”.

[AtW]

""It adds: “The rapid spread of Omicron means that action to limit pressures on the health system might have to come earlier than intuition suggests.” Its calculations suggest that even if Omicron causes a less severe hospitalisation rate of 1% or 0.5% compared with Delta’s 1.5%, then “stringent national measures’” would be needed by 18 December at the latest."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...k-leak-reveals

[mattster]

The problem with using the Grauniad as a source...

If your host is moving about and not incapacitated or at death's door , the virus will have more opportunity to spread. So a strain with a lower or slower lethality will have the evolutionary advantage.

Don't confuse Darwin with Lamarck.

But I agree the lethality of omicron is still an unknown.

So multiple academics in the field are going to the trouble of pointing out that this old trope is total misinformation, but we're supposed to ignore them and listen to someone who researches via Facebook whilst on the can?

[malvolio]

So multiple academics in the field are going to the trouble of pointing out that this old trope is total misinformation, but we're supposed to ignore them and listen to someone who researches via Facebook whilst on the can?

Hospitalisation rates in the UK are currently 6.4 per 100,000. That's 0.0064%, rather less than the above "even if Omicron causes a less severe hospitalisation rate of 1% or 0.5% compared with Delta’s 1.5%, " and the bulk of those are for unvaccinated patients. So why trust the rest of the article?

Scientists have agendas too, you know.

As for the evolutionary pressure thesis, it's neither the Darwin/Wallace speciation mechanism nor Lamarck's deterministic one but the rather more recent studies on how evolution works and the speed at which Darwin's "beneficial mutations" operate in a real world population. Facebook is oddly quiet on that subject sadly, so I had to go and read some published (and peer reviewed) papers. It's what happens when you have a life-long interest in the subject. But agsint ignoraance, the Gods themselves strive in vain.