Dec 18, 2021 19:13:35 GMT Jake said:

Any other country losing their shit over this "Omicron" variant, or is it just us that's acting like the end times?

Media is now only in the business of selling fear with a side helping of outrage.

Dec 18, 2021 19:31:58 GMT c said:

Omicron is expected to pack hospitals very fast as it spreads way, way faster than the past variants. Coin flip as to whether or not it recombines with Delta in the US, which could make it more lethal while allowing it to spread fast and bypass protection.

So by coin flip you are saying that the chances that a lethal random mutation occurs is a 50/50 proposition?

Yeah given Delta is still widespread in the US and viruses recombine randomly.  If a person is infected with both viruses, which is very likely in the US over the next few weeks, you will likely get a version of Om that is as lethal as Delta.  

Early projections also expect this wave to be fast and furious.  Projections are a peak in late Jan followed by a fast burnout.  The rate of spread is fucking scary.  Slope is super high, and it is the fastest infecting strain we seen, that bypasses most protections.  Deaths will peak in March and April.  Unlike the last two, deaths are expected not to be pneumonia but multiple organ failure, and we are not really sure why this happens.  

What gets scary now is if we boost everyone in the US, we are only looking at a 15% drop in mortality.  US is looking at an average 200k deaths from the wave.  This should hit so fast and hard that it will become the dominant strain.  All of the scenarios presented so far, assume no mutation though, and it recombining with Delta, which is currently overflowing hospitals in the US, is a real concern. 

Most countries will not have to worry about mutations, but a good chunk of the US plans to let this freely spread without restrictions, planning on early treatment with pills and antivirals.  How the South plans to tackle this remains unseen since they are also tackling Delta this way now and several states activated the guard as they ran out of people to man the beds in their hospitals.  Supplies of antivirals and COVID pills are extremely low as well, so most people seeking early treatment that their governments are promoting will not be able to get them.  Liberal areas are planning to lockdown or mask up.

Love me a good model, and this paper lays out the transmission mathematically, based on US factors and South African infection rate.

covid-19.tacc.utexas.edu/media/filer_public/20/b0/20b055db-78da-41e6-a1e4-d3afaad6167b/omicron_emergence_-_us_scenarios_-_ut.pdf

Really wish my health held so I could have jumped to making like this.  Before I relapsed this was literally what I was working on.  Spencer was one of the people I even wanted to work with.

Going by the critical thinking of c, Omicron has come to NY the hardest as revenge to the Democrats for stealing the election!

This Mother Nature vs Disease Left vs Right War is on some new level X-Men and Pokémon shit.

Anyone else perfectly content with nature picking a side?

Dec 18, 2021 22:35:16 GMT KING KID said:

Going by the critical thinking of c , Omicron has come to NY the hardest as revenge to the Democrats for stealing the election!

This Mother Nature vs Disease Left vs Right War is on some new level X-Men and Pokémon shit.

God is a fickle bitch!!!

I see it more as punishment for Ghislaine Maxwell.  She is so walking.  Defense brought in Loftus, top expert in the US on fake memories as they relate to criminal cases, with a focus on young girls and pedophilia.  DA had no counter expert.

Projections saying the South and Midwest are utterly fucked as rural healthcare will not be able to keep up with Omicron and it will wreck havoc on the unvaccinated.

Girl I chat with in Columbia tested positive for it, and the symptoms match what everyone around me thought was just a really bad upper respiratory cold that was going around. Very likely I already had it. If KING KID was sick in the last month likely he had it too. Know both like everyone around me was floored for a week with a strange illness that was like a bad cold except without the chest congestation.

Nanobots. We need nanobots.

But it is just a cold right?  A cold that killed 800k people.  There is a good chance more Americans will have died to COVID than all US wars when this is all over.

Number to beat there is 1.35 million.  

Dec 19, 2021 20:43:09 GMT c said:

Projections saying the South and Midwest are utterly fucked as rural healthcare will not be able to keep up with Omicron and it will wreck havoc on the unvaccinated.

Girl I chat with in Columbia tested positive for it, and the symptoms match what everyone around me thought was just a really bad upper respiratory cold that was going around. Very likely I already had it. If KING KID was sick in the last month likely he had it too. Know both like everyone around me was floored for a week with a strange illness that was like a bad cold except without the chest congestation.

I’ve felt like shit for a few days and tested NEGATIVE 4 straight days! I’m not sure if I’m just immune to this shit or really fucking lucky. 

My friend tested negative three days in a row before her positive while sick. Comes down to which test you use as some cannot actually detect Omicron and when it does it looks different on a test than Delta or Alpha so people assume it is a negative. Good times.

Rhode Island healthcare system about to collapse entirely. Years of mismanagement and private sector expansion left them totally unprepared for the Omicron wave. Likely the influx of people into CT hospitals will collapse us next.

Dec 20, 2021 1:47:56 GMT c said:

My friend tested negative three days in a row before her positive while sick. Comes down to which test you use as some cannot actually detect Omicron and when it does it looks different on a test than Delta or Alpha so people assume it is a negative. Good times.

This happen to my cousin, got tested was negative with my symptoms.
Went out on the town as he has just turned 18 (same place my work Xmas party was that had a separate case) then got tested again and was positive, already infectious on said night.

First Omicron US death. Person who got COVID before but no vaccine. Omicron goes not react to previous strain antibodies.


Imperial College epi team claims there is no evidence that Omicron is less dangerous than Delta yet.  No significant difference in hospitalization rates.  It may not leave as many dead, but still results in high rates of hospitalization as RI is figuring out the hard way.

I find it odd that hospitalisations are rising so much more quickly than deaths. Does this mean that existing Covid treatments work better on Omicron than Delta? Is the rise in hospitalisations down to people going to hospital with Covid or people getting Covid in hospital?

Research from Cambridge University suggests there is evidence that the spike protein does not enter the lungs as easily and does not cause cell fusion which is associated with rapid spread.

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/omicron-may-be-significantly-better-at-evading-vaccine-induced-immunity-but-less-likely-to-cause

T-cell response also remains robust so it isn't really accurate to see that the Delta vaccines or Delta infections do not create a good reaction in the body to stave off severe disease.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.12.472315v1

Exponential growth is frightening so by no means am I saying this is not serious, but just thought I'd give some balance to the usual 'the world is about to end' rhetoric in here.

In a cruel twist of irony. A staunch anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, " this whole thing isn't real " conspiracy theorist I know is sitting Christmas out this year with a positive case of Covid.

Dec 21, 2021 19:27:28 GMT NATH45 said:

In a cruel twist of irony. A staunch anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, " this whole thing isn't real " conspiracy theorist I know is sitting Christmas out this year with a positive case of Covid.

Security guard at work in 2020:
Telling me it isn’t real, way to control people.

Same security guard in 2021:
Rocks up at my workplace and freaks tf out that the kitchen is closed as several staff have tested positive, calls his boss and asks if he can leave.
To be fair he should have been informed before he came in, but he switched up quick on his original mindset.

I always love those peeps always the ones to get it and croak. Ya love to see it.

Dec 21, 2021 12:03:21 GMT Todd said:

I find it odd that hospitalisations are rising so much more quickly than deaths. Does this mean that existing Covid treatments work better on Omicron than Delta? Is the rise in hospitalisations down to people going to hospital with Covid or people getting Covid in hospital?

Research from Cambridge University suggests there is evidence that the spike protein does not enter the lungs as easily and does not cause cell fusion which is associated with rapid spread.

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/omicron-may-be-significantly-better-at-evading-vaccine-induced-immunity-but-less-likely-to-cause

T-cell response also remains robust so it isn't really accurate to see that the Delta vaccines or Delta infections do not create a good reaction in the body to stave off severe disease.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.12.472315v1

Exponential growth is frightening so by no means am I saying this is not serious, but just thought I'd give some balance to the usual 'the world is about to end' rhetoric in here.

In the States you only stay in the hospital if you absolutely need to.  If you are not getting active treatment, it is not worth it for the hospital to give you a bed.  Omicorn is still leaving people in respirators and still wreaking havoc on the kidneys.

Plus doesn't it cost 100k a night to stay anyway?

Army Vaccine ready to go to stage 2 trial. Unlike current vaccines this is a general coronavirus vaccine that aims to protect against mutations by working at a broader level and prevent the need for boosters every 3 to 6 months.

Dec 22, 2021 12:09:43 GMT @ness said:

Plus doesn't it cost 100k a night to stay anyway?

The cash is in procedures.  Keeping someone just for observations, means they are not getting that sweet testing and procedure cash.

Dec 22, 2021 12:14:22 GMT c said:

Dec 22, 2021 12:09:43 GMT @ness said:

Plus doesn't it cost 100k a night to stay anyway?

The cash is in procedures.  Keeping someone just for observations, means they are not getting that sweet testing and procedure cash.

This ain't a hotel ya old bag. GET OUT!

Omicron is negating the effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies. Does not bode well for the states that using them, instead of vaccines, as the primary way of dealing with COVID.

Ivermectin does fuck all against it as well.

Won't get the jab? How about a pill?

www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/pfizer-s-covid-19-pill-authorized-in-u-s/ar-AAS41ys?ocid=entnewsntp

Once we pass the point of that being only for the rich, should end the crisis part of the pandemic. Unless of course the Q crowd refuses to take that as well.

So there is substantial evidence now that Omicron causes less severe disease. South Africa say by 80% and they have the largest dataset, although there is a caveat that SA is believed to have a large level of innate immunity via infection. Imperial estimate 50%, and a Scottish study with a very small sample size estimates 70%. So hopefully this will all thicken up a bit in the next few days and we can have some good news. With an r of 4 or 5, this is not enough on its own to stop a catastrophic situation for many countries, but the SA dataset in particular is very interesting. Gauteng, the epicentre of the Omicron wave, is seeing a decrease in cases and almost no increase in hospitalisations. Interestingly, PCR positive rate is around 30% which is huge and suggests cases are undercounted. This to me makes the hospital numbers even more remarkable. This is a murky and interesting picture. This variant is different completely and caution should be exercised when using previous waves to predict Doomsday, and indeed, optimistic scenarios. We don’t know enough yet.

South African data should not be trusted entirely since many people there still fear Western medicine.

US is projecting a fast, lethal wave that hits primarily the unvaccinated. The lower lung severity is expected to be offset by the sheer numbers of people getting sick and hospitals having to ration care.

What I am curious about is since this seems to hit fast and take over other strains what happens when it is done. I suspect for the US it mutates in the southern phase and returns to the cities, giving the world a new variant. Many southern states plan to just let this spread as they do not believe it is worth doing any preventative measures to slow it.

Dec 22, 2021 20:18:22 GMT c said:

South African data should not be trusted entirely since many people there still fear Western medicine.

US is projecting a fast, lethal wave that hits primarily the unvaccinated. The lower lung severity is expected to be offset by the sheer numbers of people getting sick and hospitals having to ration care.

What I am curious about is since this seems to hit fast and take over other strains what happens when it is done. I suspect for the US it mutates in the southern phase and returns to the cities, giving the world a new variant. Many southern states plan to just let this spread as they do not believe it is worth doing any preventative measures to slow it.

Sink or swim. It's clear people as a whole aren't willing to change, so might as well.