Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Josephus]

I will try and get my booster but yeah I can see COVID fatigue settling in.

First they said "wait until the vaccine comes and all will be good."
then it was: "Well, you need a second vaccine and all will be good."

Now it's "Well, those two are OK...will stop you from dying, but you really need a third."

I can see people getting annoyed--and it also fuels the Big Pharma is in on this conspiracy theory.

[DGuller]

If Omicron doesn't prove to be nature's vaccine against all Covid variants, then this is very alarming: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/us/cornell-university-covid-cases/index.html.

I heard something similar on NPR t'other day.  46 cases of Omgricon, most of them fully vaccinated.

I'm wondering if I had it.  Coughing, runny nose.

Is it possible for a vaccination to make it more transmissible?  Maybe Cornell doesn't have a control group of anti-vaxxers, since almost all of it is fully vaccinated, but given the current vaccination rates it is weird for most cases elsewhere to be breakthrough.

[Sheilbh]

I heard something similar on NPR t'other day.  46 cases of Omgricon, most of them fully vaccinated.

I'm wondering if I had it.  Coughing, runny nose.

I think the CMO here has said if you're in London and you've got or had cold symptoms in the last few days it's probably omicron.

And this line from virologist/public health academic - I think in the UK and other countries with plenty of omicron like Denmark we probably have until the end of January if it keeps going. America will take a little longer but, based on London, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the dominant variant in New York within a week:

Muge Cevik
@mugecevik
The only thing I am sure of is that omicron will spread so quickly through the population, making it likely impossible to contain even with the most stringent measures & giving us very little time over the next few weeks. So get your vaccines & boosters!

[Sheilbh]

Is it possible for a vaccination to make it more transmissible?  Maybe Cornell doesn't have a control group of anti-vaxxers, since almost all of it is fully vaccinated, but given the current vaccination rates it is weird for most cases elsewhere to be breakthrough.

Maybe - there's definitely a lot of re-infection among people who've been previously infected or vaccinated but we know (and have known since June/July) that the vaccine effectiveness wanes 3-5 months after the second dose. The cases here look like they are starting to spread into other age groups but are still strongest in younger age-groups who are least vaccinated and least boosted.

[Zanza]

How would the vaccination make it more transmissable? The only thing the vaccination does is to prime your immune response. When you get infected, the virus starts to reproduce in you. Either your immune system battles it with priming or without. The latter will lead to a worse immune response and thus to a higher reproduction rate. That means your viral load is higher and you can more easily infectore people.

That omicron spreads so fast also among the vaccinated is much more likely due to vaccinated people behaving recklessly and not using masks, social distancing etc. anymore.

[celedhring]

The anti-vaxxer argument I've got on that regard is: "if you don't actually feel ill because you're vaccinated, you'll be moving around and spread the disease".

The uni I do work for (Catholic business school) is revealing itself to be an antivaxxer reservoir.

[Syt]

If Omicron doesn't prove to be nature's vaccine against all Covid variants, then this is very alarming: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/us/cornell-university-covid-cases/index.html.

Do we know how many of these are symptomatic, and among the symptomatic ones how severe the symptoms are, and how this compares between vaccinated and unvaccinated people?

[Tamas]

https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-cov-2-infection

A study led by researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) provides the first information on how the novel Variant of Concern (VOC) of SARS-CoV-2, the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infect human respiratory tract. The researchers found that Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infects and multiplies 70 times faster than the Delta variant and original SARS-CoV-2 in human bronchus, which may explain why Omicron may transmit faster between humans than previous variants. Their study also showed that the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity. This research is currently under peer review for publication.

[Josquius]

Worrying quote. If you live in London and you've had sniffles lately... It's covid.

[The Larch]

The uni I do work for (Catholic business school) is revealing itself to be an antivaxxer reservoir.

All those radical libertarians... it's funny how the anti-vax movement has moved with Covid from mostly weird hippies to mostly anti-government types.

[Tamas]

When you report your lateral flow test result online to the NHS, do you get a confirmation page/email? We have a box of tests lying around and we need to prove negative tests when landing to Poland, hence why I ask.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - but I didn't think lateral flow tests counted for that (not least because you are self-reporting the result ) but you do get an email or another page.

To be honest I've been doing loads but not reporting my results/I forgot

[Tamas]

Yeah - but I didn't think lateral flow tests counted for that (not least because you are self-reporting the result ) but you do get an email or another page.

To be honest I've been doing loads but not reporting my results/I forgot

It is for Poland not for England - for the latter you need the expensive private options, true. But Poland don't seem to specify anything apart from 24 hours old max lateral flow or PCR test.

[Sheilbh]

Worrying quote. If you live in London and you've had sniffles lately... It's covid.

Isn't it a bit six of one, half dozeon of the other?

It is spreading incredibly quickly here - and London is potentially risky because, for a variety of reasons, it's the least vaccinated region in the country. So I think yesterday's London covid case numbers were up 176% with last Wednesday (which was when we barely had any omicron). And the rate it's growing even though we have on average over a million tests a day being processes I think there's a genuine risk we might (as in the first wave) run out of testing capacity. From Oliver Johnson on Twitter on just this is growing in London - both on log. Covid cases have never been going up this fast since we've had a decent amount of testing:



On the other hand if you've had sniffles and it was probably covid that's not a bad result and speaks to either the higher level of immunity in population (because of previous infections, or vaccines boosted or not) or because omicron is a milder variant, or both. If the worst is that hundreds of thousands of people get the sniffles and we've all had covid that doesn't strike me as that worrying a prospect - but it's still way too soon to know what's going on. From what I've read the UK and Denmark are the places in Europe to probably watch right now, the South Africa data still looks promising but it's also still very early so not super clear and not necessarily directly relevant.

And the thing I wonder about that we haven't seen is the incredibly rapid fall in growth rates that happened in South Africa because I don't know what caused that (but they didn't impose loads of restrictions) and it looks baffling. It'll be really interesting if it's replicated in the UK or Denmark.

I can see people getting annoyed--and it also fuels the Big Pharma is in on this conspiracy theory.

Maybe - I just swear there were conversations about people probably needing a booster shot every year like flu almost as soon as the first vaccines arrived. And I just find it a bit odd - I can't get into the headspace.

I suppose it's another thing that might get easier when someone finally does the nasal version they've been talking about for ages.

[Tamas]

I guess there are two separate considerations with the (hopefully lower) severity of Omicron - that would definitely be great news on an individual level as your chances of surviving (and surviving without long term damage) are better, but from a national health service point of view it is largely irrelevant if it also spreads like wildfire compared to Delta. - As Witty explained if it half as serious but twice as infectious you are still ending up with the same number of hospital beds taken in the same amount of time as you would have with Delta.