SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
That is both really cool and really scary to find out.
By 1920 everybody had either developed immunity or died. Just like Covid will probably always be around in some form but the German chap was right, everybody will either be dead or immune to it.
Not sure where it originated, but the South African cases are probably due to the founders effect - we were close to zero cases until this most recent outbreak.
So it's definitely possible that Omicron simply didn't have to compete with Delta at all, giving it a free run to take over in SA and hence be all of the cases. In Europe though, Delta has a firm grip. I think genome sequencing in Europe is done on c1% of cases, so it's very possible Omicron was effectively a variant of interest in Europe before the SA outbreak, but the SA outbreak has become the epicentre as it can infect everyone here.
That’s definitely possible. And, if so, means either one or both of the following are true.
a) Omicron is less transmissible than Delta
b) It evades immunity from prior infection very well but vaccination less well
All pure speculation of course!
Definitely. Although there’s an important different between the viruses in that influenza is much less genetically stable (antigenic drift) which makes it harder to vaccinate against but quicker to mutate to less virulent forms.
The Kent variant was only identified as a problematic variant in December even though the first test case was captured in September, and the UK only looked at this variant beause of some interesting findings about a similar but different variant in South Africa in November. These things just sit in databases picking up dust until there's a particular real-world trigger that causes them to zoom in on it, we can track thousands of them but we can't thoroughly analyse thousands of them. It's not the kind of thing that jumps out in the data, despite all the talk about it being 50% more transmissible than the last. It was just a coincidental email that made them look.
It doesn't make any sense to descibe South Africa as the country of origin for this variant, IMO. It's just the country of identification. For most big variants we never identify patient zero, and we continually discover it being identified in a completely different region at a much earlier point in the timeline. There's far too many gaps in international sequencing capabilities and far too much lag in genomic sequencing identification to have even a fuzzy picture of how it originated.
I don't think the policies are based on the assumption that South Africa was where it was originated, they're based on the assumption that it's much more prevalent and a much higher risk than in their own countries. That's a perfectly reasonable assumption based on the evidence available at the time. But the WHO have repeatedly said that closing borders is not a particularly effective method at preventing exposure because inevitably it's already in your country before you knew it. That's proven true every time. It's just a political decision.
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Random personal fact. Spanish flu orphaned my grandmother when she was living in South Africa (her dad was blown up a year earlier, working on the railways) and she had to take a 6 month boat trip all on her own to live with a grand-aunt in Ireland. Aged 11.Woah
Spanish Flu = H1N1
That's an incredible coincidence. My grandmother was 2-years-old when she was also orphaned by Spanish Flu.
Where is this?
It isn't possible. Even if it wasn't picked up in time and the chance of that is probably less than 1 in a million, they would be finding hundreds of thousands cases now looking back, not dozens. And well over 50% of all cases would have to be omicron. It is totally impossible.
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Excellent, have a good time
“Children under the age of 2 account for about 10% of total hospital admissions in the omicron epicenter Tshwane in South Africa, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-up-10-of-hospital-cases-in-omicron-epicenter
It’s from a few days ago though so might have changed.
That’s staggering
Wouldn’t worry too much. Same thing happened with delta. You probably remember the headlines about delta making kids much sicker than previous variants. A new variant scares the shit out of everyone and the paediatricians err on the side of caution, admitting not very sick kids for observation.
Thanks
Early indications suggest most Omicron coronavirus cases are mild, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
An official, speaking on behalf of the organisation, said there is no evidence to suggest the efficacy of vaccines has been reduced by the new strain - but did say some mutations of the virus indicate an increased risk of quicker transmission.
They added more than 40 different mutations have been identified with the Omicron variant.
An official, speaking on behalf of the organisation, said there is no evidence to suggest the efficacy of vaccines has been reduced by the new strain - but did say some mutations of the virus indicate an increased risk of quicker transmission.
They added more than 40 different mutations have been identified with the Omicron variant.
Breaking new on Sky
Early indications suggest most Omicron coronavirus cases are mild, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
An official, speaking on behalf of the organisation, said there is no evidence to suggest the efficacy of vaccines has been reduced by the new strain- but did say some mutations of the virus indicate an increased risk of quicker transmission.
They added more than 40 different mutations have been identified with the Omicron variant.
Early indications suggest most Omicron coronavirus cases are mild, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
An official, speaking on behalf of the organisation, said there is no evidence to suggest the efficacy of vaccines has been reduced by the new strain- but did say some mutations of the virus indicate an increased risk of quicker transmission.
They added more than 40 different mutations have been identified with the Omicron variant.
Sounds like a series where Walt JR follows in his daddies footsteps.
More a question or a theory.
There have been suggestions that these huge mutated versions are created from immunocompromised people (HIV etc) now if the virus is staying in their system for a lot longer then a "healthy" person but it's not killing them does this make it more likely it will become a mild variant with less severe disease.
Makes sense from a logical view to me but was interested if there is actually any science to that or just pure luck.
There have been suggestions that these huge mutated versions are created from immunocompromised people (HIV etc) now if the virus is staying in their system for a lot longer then a "healthy" person but it's not killing them does this make it more likely it will become a mild variant with less severe disease.
Makes sense from a logical view to me but was interested if there is actually any science to that or just pure luck.
This could turn out to be the end of the pandemic with covid 19 becoming like other coronaviruses with increased transmissibility minus the serious disease i.e. like the common cold/flu. We shall see
As if on cue:
I know I seem to constantly be a Debbie Downer about all your theories but my understanding is that the severity/mortality is driven mainly by the genotype of the host. If your genetics make you vulnerable to severe disease then you get sick and/dead quite quickly. For the virus to set up shop in an immune compromised host for a long time that person must be genetically resistant to severe disease. However, their impaired immune system means they can’t clear the virus as quickly as “normal” people, so they stay mild/moderately sick for a long time.
This means that a variant which evolves in them without making them very sick could kill a different person quite quickly.
Further complicating things is the fact that what makes people most sick is a kind of overactive immune response. Which an immune suppressed patient would be spared.
tl;dr: Probably not but feck knows really!
It didn’t… people died, others gained natural immunity, the virus mutated every year to less deadly forms, although there have been years where it’s been more deadly than the previous year or symptoms have been much stronger.
I think in the late 50s there was a very bad flu season due to a mutation in Asia, then in the late 60s there was the Hong Kong flu which was probably the worse since the Spanish Flu and killed 4m globally, the last very bad mutation was late 00s originating from North America, funnily enough called swine flu and not the USA flu even thou it was H1N1 just like the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, and Hong Kong Flu..
The flu mutates every year and vaccines are updated every year.
However problematic or not the Omicron variant turns out to be, the latest restrictions regarding face coverings are not likely to have the desired effect.
Most of the big supermarkets have already said that they will not be asking their staff to enforce it.
And same for the biggest bus service First Bus.
Disappointing but understandable.
Most of the big supermarkets have already said that they will not be asking their staff to enforce it.
And same for the biggest bus service First Bus.
Disappointing but understandable.
I went in my local sainsburys yesterday lunchtime, and was pleasantly surprised to see easily 95% of people wearing a mask. None of the signage around the shop had changed - it still said it was personal choice.
I went in my local Aldi a couple of hours ago and that percentage was reversed. I was one of three people in there with a mask, and one of those other two was one of those idiots who wear it under their nose!
Do you live in an afflu… haha I can’t
Great to hear about those Sainsbury's shoppers.
The wearing of face coverings will vary somewhat.
But what I was disappointed at was the speed and publicity given to those supermarkets and First Bus refusal to enforce the latest requirements.
I mean why publicise it. Why not just say nothing.
Course it won't, do you genuinely believe shops are the breeding/incubation ground for covid? It's merely a vanity exercise from the government. If they were serious about having an impact then they would be going full on with social distancing and masks in hospitality if it really was something to be concerned rather than this current approach which has no logic to its decision.
The Pull Out Method is a let down
What I can see with transports services not enforcing it is huge arguments. Imagine if someone whose not wearing a mask decides to sit next to someone who is wearing one? The one wearing the mask who was sitting there first would have every reason to be annoyed.
Interesting, I had both the 1957 and 1968 flu, but not the 2009. Maybe immune to that one after the first two.
It shouldn't be a personal choice. Regarding issues of public health, you have to say "you must" sometimes.
Few people would describe it as that!
Cases are going ballistic in Gauteng. I’ve heard of 9 new cases today of people I know. All vaxxed. For perspective, I probably knew 30 in total during our bad Delta wave.
Having said that, they’re all mild cases - scratchy throat, headaches and body aches.
Having said that, they’re all mild cases - scratchy throat, headaches and body aches.
My local big Asda used to be more or less 100% compliant (and those that didn't were almost all wearing visors). That had tailed off to less than 20% by last week. On Monday (before the rule officially changed) it was already back above 80%.
Yesterday, I was in a big Tesco and I saw no one unmasked. Freak results maybe, but it was encouraging, maybe sometimes it just needs a bit of a kickstart and people can do it. Peer group pressure can be a positive.
Update from the UK on the possible rise of Omicron cases in the last few days. There's a massive caveat when it comes to looking at the curve though - testing of some samples has been deliberately rerouted to PCR test labs who use the test that sees this dropout effect.
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A) it didn't and b) it became less of a problem because because many millions died and millions other who supplied go some level of immunity.