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~*Official #COVID-19 Thread of Doom*~ Revenge of Omicron Prime

AbsolutSurgen
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Chris-

Chris-

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22 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

This is overall great news (assuming they mean people who have no prior immunity), but we could still see hospitalizations reach levels from the Delta peak. I remember seeing a calculation that if Omicron was only 2x more contagious, then even if it was 10x less deadly it will still result in around the same number of deaths. However, that's uncertain.

 

The more annoying part of this is that if this bears out (and far fewer people die, get really sick, etc), then the antivaxxers are going to be completely insufferable. "See it was just a flu, everyone was freaking out over the pandemic for nothing." Even though everything that everyone else has done over the previous two years is what kept them safe.


Realistically this is the most ideal ending to the pandemic, and there is absolutely no reason to bemoan it for the sake of winning points. If the early indications of Omicron pan out, we’ve dodged a pretty big bullet. 

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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2 minutes ago, Chris- said:


Realistically this is the most ideal ending to the pandemic, and there is absolutely no reason to bemoan it for the sake of winning points. If the early indications of Omicron pan out, we’ve dodged a pretty big bullet. 

 

For sure. The annoyance of having to listen to antivaxxers the rest of their lives is well worth the saving of their lives...I just want to cut them out of my life forever.

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AbsolutSurgen

AbsolutSurgen

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29 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

This is overall great news (assuming they mean people who have no prior immunity), but we could still see hospitalizations reach levels from the Delta peak. I remember seeing a calculation that if Omicron was only 2x more contagious, then even if it was 10x less deadly it will still result in around the same number of deaths. However, that's uncertain.

 

The more annoying part of this is that if this bears out (and far fewer people die, get really sick, etc), then the antivaxxers are going to be completely insufferable. "See it was just a flu, everyone was freaking out over the pandemic for nothing." Even though everything that everyone else has done over the previous two years is what kept them safe.

The epidemiologists I've listed to have been very cautious about predicting hospitalizations.  We don't know enough about virulence of Omicron to make good predictions.

 

There is a very real possibility that Omicron will create a huge spike in hospitalizations.

There is also a very real possibility that it won't -- particularly in populations where the most vulnerable (i.e. over 80) are fully vaccinated.

 

The problem public health officials have, IMHO, with always predicting doom, is that when they are wrong people won't believe them in the future.

 

So, if in the future, for example, we get a genetic mixing of Delta and Omicron (i.e. what is being reported might be happening in NY) that is more transmissible, but not less virulent, a lot of people won't believe them.

 

IMHO, there has been so much BAD messaging during this pandemic, because they feel it is better to give clear (but not completely true) messages -- when a true (but more nuanced message) would be so much better in the long run.

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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Using these figures, it would seem that accounting for population, current ICU figures in Ontario are basically:

  • Unvaccinated: 3.97 /100k
  • Vaccinated: 0.32 /100k

Which is crazy since most of the people who end up in ICU (and are vaccinated) are the severely vulnerable to begin with. If we just compared severe outcome of vaccinated vs unvaccinated among the non-vulnerable population, the vaccine efficacy would be even more pronounced. 

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AbsolutSurgen

AbsolutSurgen

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_122366977_gettyimages-1298019774.jpg

Omicron wave appears milder, but concern remains

WWW.BBC.COM
The risk of needing hospital treatment could be two-thirds lower with Omicron than other variants.
Quote

Early evidence suggests fewer people are needing hospital treatment - potentially around a two-thirds reduction - than with other variants.

However, the Scottish study is based on very few cases and had few people over 65, who are most at risk.

And the concern remains that even if Omicron is milder, the sheer number of cases could overwhelm hospitals.

The study in Scotland has been tracking coronavirus and the number of people ending up in hospital.

It said that if Omicron behaved the same as Delta then they would expect around 47 people to have been admitted to hospital already. At the moment there are only 15.

Dr Jim McMenamin, the national Covid-19 incident director at Public Health Scotland, described it as a "qualified good news story".

He said the data was "filling in a blank" about protection against hospitalisation, but cautioned it was "important we don't get ahead of ourselves".

The Omicron variant is spreading incredibly quickly and the number of confirmed cases reported in a single day in the UK has now exceeded 100,000.

The study has been shared with the World Health Organization and the UK government's science advisers.

Prof Mark Woolhouse, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "An individual infection could be relatively mild for the vast majority of people, but the potential for all these infections to come at once and put serious strain on the NHS remains."

Meanwhile, another study in South Africa also points to people being less likely to need hospital treatment for Omicron.

It showed people were 70-80% less likely to need hospital treatment, depending on whether Omicron is compared to previous waves, or other variants currently circulating.

However, it suggested there was no difference in outcomes for the few patients that ended up in hospital with Omicron.

"Compellingly, together our data really suggest a positive story of a reduced severity of Omicron compared to other variants," said Prof Cheryl Cohen of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, in South Africa.

It is still unclear whether the Omicron variant is fundamentally milder or is appearing milder as we now have far more immunity.

The UK Health Security Agency is expected to publish early real-world data on Omicron soon, which could give indications on the variant's severity.

 

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Kal-El814

Kal-El814

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15 hours ago, Joe said:

Isnt Phase 1 about antibody response?

 

There are various exceptions for myriad reasons, but in broad strokes:

 

Phase I: Is it safe, what's the dosage, with healthy volunteers. ~100 subjects or less. IIRC something like 2/3 drugs make it past Phase I. Not only is there no statistical power to examine efficacy, it's not considered ethical to enroll people with the target indication at this point and the participants must be healthy.

Phase II: Does it work, what are the side effects, with subjects that have the target indication. ~a couple hundred subjects. 1/3 of drugs make it past here.

Phase III: Does it work, monitoring side effects / adverse reactions, with subjects that have the target indication. At least a few hundred subjects, up to a few thousand. 1/4 - 1/3 of drugs make it past here.

Phase IV: Safety and efficacy, with subjects that have the target indication. Several thousand subjects.

 

A marketing application generally needs data from 2 large, controlled clinical trials.

 

Again, there are exceptions to all of this depending on lots of things, like orphan drug status. And I shifted to a different side of the industry right as the company that I was working for started getting bids for COVID studies, so I don't have any insight into how the pandemic has shifted the goal posts on some of these things. I think my language is already outdated... volunteers is (I believe) the more preferred nomenclature as opposed to subjects, which itself was initially used in favor of patients, in the interest of making it clear to people participating in clinical trials that there is no guarantee of efficacy, or often, that they'll even be getting the experimental treatment at all.

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Spork3245

Spork3245

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With "Omicron is more mild" it's important to note that's in vaccinated/people with antibodies: 


I feel as though the the "it's more mild" gets thrown out there too broadly and is dangerous AF as it leads to the idea that the virus itself is getting weaker when it's not. This then potentially misinforms unvaccinated (even further), or those who haven't vaccinated their kids yet, with the wrong impression of vaccination is no longer needed since "it's getting weaker".

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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"Hey, what should we, as incredibly essential healthcare workers, do right before the holidays?"

"How about all get together in the same room at the same time with no precautions?"

"Sure, nothing could go wrong!"

 

 

Fucking EMTs. The bro culture of cops merged with the drinking culture of firefighters, at least where I live.

 

Actually, on that note—firefighters in my city were caught paying a homeless man money to get vaccinations for them (they gave their health cards and he went pharmacy to pharmacy getting shots). Pharmacists caught on and healthcare staff were notified...but the firefighters never faced any punishment, at least so far.

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Jason

Jason

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2 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

"Hey, what should we, as incredibly essential healthcare workers, do right before the holidays?"

"How about all get together in the same room at the same time with no precautions?"

"Sure, nothing could go wrong!"

 

 

Fucking EMTs. The bro culture of cops merged with the drinking culture of firefighters, at least where I live.

 

Actually, on that note—firefighters in my city were caught paying a homeless man money to get vaccinations for them (they gave their health cards and he went pharmacy to pharmacy getting shots). Pharmacists caught on and healthcare staff were notified...but the firefighters never faced any punishment, at least so far.

 

How many shots did the homeless guy get? 

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Chollowa

Chollowa

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4 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

"Hey, what should we, as incredibly essential healthcare workers, do right before the holidays?"

"How about all get together in the same room at the same time with no precautions?"

"Sure, nothing could go wrong!"

 

 

Fucking EMTs. The bro culture of cops merged with the drinking culture of firefighters, at least where I live.

 

Actually, on that note—firefighters in my city were caught paying a homeless man money to get vaccinations for them (they gave their health cards and he went pharmacy to pharmacy getting shots). Pharmacists caught on and healthcare staff were notified...but the firefighters never faced any punishment, at least so far.

I have alot of friends that are nurses and I've seen them flood their social with holiday gatherings. In person, unmasked with alcohol. It's definitely a recipe for covid spread. All of that said, I completely understand their need to get together and blow off steam. It's no different than my own. They aren't fucking robots and the shit some of the nurses on the Covid ward have gone through would probably break me. I'm sure these EMTs are the same, but if you're emts are anything like ours, they're doing it for shit wages. 

 

I've taken to lurking the r/nursing and some of the stories there are just completely batshit insanity. Dr.'s and nurses are leaving the profession, probably in record numbers right now because of the shit sandwiches they are having to eat on a daily basis. I've read about them watching patients die, being punched by anti-vaxx family members that just lost their family member to covid, on top of that they are having people come into covid wards and threaten a mass shooting. 

 

This shit is wild. 

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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9 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

How many shots did the homeless guy get? 

 

10, I believe, before he was caught.

 

1 minute ago, Chollowa said:

I have alot of friends that are nurses and I've seen them flood their social with holiday gatherings. In person, unmasked with alcohol. It's definitely a recipe for covid spread. All of that said, I completely understand their need to get together and blow off steam. It's no different than my own. They aren't fucking robots and the shit some of the nurses on the Covid ward have gone through would probably break me. I'm sure these EMTs are the same, but if you're emts are anything like ours, they're doing it for shit wages. 

 

I've taken to lurking the r/nursing and some of the stories there are just completely batshit insanity. Dr.'s and nurses are leaving the profession, probably in record numbers right now because of the shit sandwiches they are having to eat on a daily basis. I've read about them watching patients die, being punched by anti-vaxx family members that just lost their family member to covid, on top of that they are having people come into covid wards and threaten a mass shooting. 

 

This shit is wild. 

 

I 100% do not blame them for wanting to party or relax. The issue (especially in this case) is that if they have to isolate for a while then it causes a shortage in an already critical shortage time. However, I don't know the solution—you can't ask healthcare workers to keep pulling 60-80 work weeks forever as more and more of them quit, especially in places where the leadership/government clearly doesn't care about them.

 

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silentbob

silentbob

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5 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

 

Republicans and Fox News will be very skeptical of this, since they won't be able to identify each ingredient in the pill, right?

 

Right?!


They will probably say they’re “Sugar Pills” and contained small gps tracker chip inside. You see now why they’re is such a chip shortage worldwide, because they changed their manufacturing facilities to mass produce these instead. The government is trying to control you and thought they could trick you into taking it instead with a pill.

 

 

 

its pretty damn easy to think “Fox News” for these things sadly. Plus Americans love pills, and they should just call these pills “The New Oxy” Cure Covid in no time 

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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My mom, sister, and I just cancelled our Christmas Day plans after learning that an anti-vaxxer would be present.

 

My mom explicitly told the hosts (her brother and sister-in-law) the reason we were cancelling and to pass it on to (in my mother's exact words) "that selfish unvaccinated bitch".

 

Needless to say, my uncle is NOT happy with his wife at the moment as that woman is part of her family and not my mother's/uncle's and my aunt was supposed to request that the woman NOT be in attendance.

 

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

My mom, sister, and I just cancelled our Christmas Day plans after learning that an anti-vaxxer would be present.

 

My mom explicitly told the hosts (her brother and sister-in-law) the reason we were cancelling and to pass it on to (in my mother's exact words) "that selfish unvaccinated bitch".

 

Needless to say, my uncle is NOT happy with his wife at the moment as that woman is part of her family and not my mother's/uncle's and my aunt was supposed to request that the woman NOT be in attendance.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. We almost ran into the same situation, but thankfully my mom decided to disallow my antivaxx uncle to come down to our city. It really sucks in your case since you made that long trip (by the way, I loved the pictures of you and Inuk driving there). Hopefully you and your immediately family are still able to have a nice dinner.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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3 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

I'm sorry to hear that. We almost ran into the same situation, but thankfully my mom decided to disallow my antivaxx uncle to come down to our city. It really sucks in your case since you made that long trip (by the way, I loved the pictures of you and Inuk driving there). Hopefully you and your immediately family are still able to have a nice dinner.

 

Are you kidding me? 

 

I'm goddamned OVERJOYED at this turn of events as I DESPISE that side of the "family" anyway as they're all fucking Republicans!  I wish they'd all get COVID and die!  I REALLY didn't want to be there in the first place - the only reason I was going was for my mom and sister.

 

I just feel badly for my uncle who is like my mom, sister, and me as he will have no one from our side of the family participating.

 

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osxmatt

osxmatt

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1 hour ago, silentbob said:


They will probably say they’re “Sugar Pills” and contained small gps tracker chip inside. You see now why they’re is such a chip shortage worldwide, because they changed their manufacturing facilities to mass produce these instead. The government is trying to control you and thought they could trick you into taking it instead with a pill.

 

 

 

its pretty damn easy to think “Fox News” for these things sadly. Plus Americans love pills, and they should just call these pills “The New Oxy” Cure Covid in no time 


My sarcasm may have missed. They’ll have no issue with this pill, because it was never about “ingredients” or the “CDC” it was always about the vaccine.

 

It’s the same reason they have no issues taking monoclonal antibodies, even though they have no idea what a monoclonal bodies are. 

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