Some additional good news regarding Omicron and mild cases

Discussion in 'Coronavirus Pandemic Discussions' started by CenterField, Dec 11, 2021.

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  1. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-african-doctors-see-signs-075237800.html

    While we should be prudent with early conclusions because severe illness and death have a lag of a few weeks, and it seems like the initial cases were in young people (first outbreak, in a college campus), as time goes by, the news from South Africa are looking better and better.

    "Dr. Unben Pillay is seeing dozens of sick patients a day. Yet he hasn’t had to send anyone to the hospital"

    "“They are able to manage the disease at home," Pillay said of his patients. "Most have recovered within the 10 to 14-day isolation period.” said Pillay.

    And that includes older patients and those with health problems that can make them more vulnerable to becoming severely ill from a coronavirus infection, he said."

    "Only about 30% of those hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent weeks have been seriously ill, less than half the rate as during the first weeks of previous pandemic waves."

    "Average hospital stays for COVID-19 have been shorter this time - about 2.8 days compared to eight days."

    "Just 3% of patients hospitalized recently with COVID-19 have died, versus about 20% in the country's earlier outbreaks."

    And this, while this:

    "Of the patients hospitalized in the current wave, 86% weren't vaccinated against the coronavirus"

    ------------

    So, yes, it does seem like some are still dying... but the vast majority of the hospitalized ones are unvaccinated, and South Africa has a very high incidence of immuno-compromised patients due to widespread HIV/AIDS.

    In the European Union, a much more comparable population to the US's, none of the 314 certified Omicron cases have died.

    In the United States, only 1 of the 44 certified Omicron cases needed to be hospitalized, no one died.

    Still, most of these were vaccinated people because most derived from international travel, and most international travelers have to show proof of vaccination to enter most countries. So they may be a cohort with more likely milder disease. Still, the data are hopeful.

    ---------

    Again, like the South African doctor said, it's still early because they are seeing the Omicron surge for 2 weeks and often deaths are 3-5 weeks after infection, but surely the data are encouraging.

    ----------

    If Omicron truly proves to be milder (and data from multiple sources are making it look this way) then with its high infectiousness, it will be a blessing in disguise; it will function as a natural vaccine... a lot of people will catch it but very few will run into trouble, which may lead to strong herd immunity for the first time since the pandemic started.

    In a sense Omicron can defeat previous herd immunity because it can easily re-infect those who had Covid before... but if Omicron proves to provide immunity not only against subsequent Omicron infections but against subsequent re-infection with future variants, then it will act as a natural vaccine.

    Some of the above may be wishful thinking, but there is indeed a possibility that Omicron will contribute to extinguishing the pandemic, after a few difficult months for hospitals (because even if it is milder, the sheer number of cases will likely still increase the number of patients in hospitals).

    After the Omicron wave travels the world and burns out, we may enter an endemic phase of the disease, much more manageable, and much more attenuated. Fingers crossed.
     
  2. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Good Christ I hope so. I've been looking for this to hook up with something like Ebola since the whole thing began

    And then Trump would probably come on saying it only struck down liberals and was accelerated by Socialism
     
  3. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hooking up with something like Ebola is rather impossible from the virology standpoint. Two very different families of viruses in shape and genetics. There's no such think as an Ebola-Coronavirus hybrid. It's like expecting that we'll see an Eagle-Dolphin hybrid.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2021
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  4. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    In the early days of Omicron there was a report that this variant first came from an HIV carrier in South Africa who had Covid for a long time. I have not seen if this person survived but suspect he is still alive. This person would have had a poor immunity response yet still Omicron has not killed him. I don't know his age and how HIV is affecting him/her. So if Omicron is not seriously effecting the health of the most vulnerable in a low vaccinated area with high incidence of HIV/AIDS we should bite the bullet and open up completely - in the UK we are looking like we are going into full lockdown which I think will be a missed opportunity to achieve natural rapid herd immunity. I say missed opportunity because we need a mild variant to become dominant in case something like Delta is given time to mutate into a more serious variant
     
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  5. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think the governments are just waiting until after the holiday bump to call it good and open fully

    otherwise, they get blamed for the bump
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2021
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  6. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  7. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    Looks like omicron is in the fully exponential phase in London. Infections doubling every 2-3 days.

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/uk/uk-omicron-infections-tidal-wave-gbr-intl/index.html

    This is worse than any previous wave. My bet is that we also already have 10,000s of omicron cases in the US, but, as usual, we are far behind in sequencing. Omicron being milder is our only hope. However, I am not so sure of the assessment of milder disease because it spreads first through the younger, more socially active population, which is also more likely to have had covid in the past. So, is it really milder, or is it just not killing people because they already have some immunity from previous infections (known or unknown)?
     
  8. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Those are the big questions. I killed one person in the UK today.
    Still, it seems like we'd be having more deaths if it weren't milder. But we'll see. I read that by the end of the week Omicron will be half the cases in the UK, and will take over completely in a few more days. So, count 4 weeks from that, and if deaths don't increase dramatically, then we'll know it is indeed milder.
     
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  9. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't think "patient zero" was ever identified. I find if very hard to believe that it was, because the way they found Omicron, was that they saw a surge in cases, and then and only then, decided to do some sequencing, and then realized they were seeing a very different variant. What happened is that due to the variant's genome, which picked up strains of genetic material that were seen in one of the common cold coronaviruses and also on the HIV, the hypothesis was that this was a recombinant variant, that most likely had developed in an HIV immuno-compromised person in which the previous variant lingered, and the person was simultaneously infected with a common cold coronavirus, and with HIV. But that's a hypothesis; and it seems likely, but there wasn't that I know any way to identify the patient zero.
     
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  10. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    An Israeli study confirmed the Pfizer and BioNTech studies showing that a booster zaps Omicron.

    The Israeli study was carried out by the Sheba Medical Center and the Health Ministry's Central Virology Laboratory.

    It compared the blood of 20 people who had received two vaccine doses 5-6 months earlier to the same number of individuals who had received a booster a month before.

    Those who did not receive the booster shots, had no neutralization ability against Omicron. Researchers said the booster increased this about a hundred fold and was able to neutralize Omicron.
     
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  11. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    Just heard that the one person who died was unvaccinated.



    Unverified report but would have thought that the actual family would have challenged this claim if untrue. Don't know if he had any other viral infections, perhaps he had seasonal flu too?

    In UK so far we are still not seeing a rise in deaths or hospitalisation that can be attributed to Omicron. At this time of year we always see people admitted and dying from viral infections.

    Similarly not seeing a rise in South Africa deathrstes even though they have had Omicron for a relatively long time and many people there are unvaccinated and have other conditions such as hiv.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
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  12. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    Now reported that in UK 7 have died from Omicron. Don't know their health status and don't know vaccination status of 6 of those. BUT quite sure that Omicron has been in UK since mid November judging by the start date of the rapid rise of cases of Covid. So this 7 is a really low number. Would be interesting to know what flu death numbers during this period are and taken together compared to previous years before covid. IMO this low number does not justify the added restrictions we are seeing in the UK and rest of Europe
     
  13. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the update. What kind of restrictions are you under now?
     
  14. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    The main restriction that I am against is the quarantine period for close traced contacts of Omicron cases. With the other variants, a close contact if you are double vaccinated requires quarantine until tested negative. However with the Omicron variant any close contact requires 10 days quarantine even if you are double vaccinated and test negative. This is causing a huge problem on businesses having staff quarantining and in one of my businesses, a hotel, we are having many guests cancelling their bookings because of the fear mongering regarding Omicron and the threat of lockdowns being brought back. There is no evidence that I have seen showing that Omicron is any worse than seasonal flu regarding hospitalisation or deaths. We don't lockdown or quarantine for seasonal flu. The added mask mandate is of no significance

    In many countries in Europe they are having full lockdown and all entry by non-nationals banned. This is going to be another nail in the coffin for the airline industry
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2021
  15. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If in the next few weeks the low death toll is confirmed then I'm sure your governments will lift some or all restrictions. I think governments are being prudent because all this talk of mild cases misunderstands one thing, that severity of Covid-19 occurs in one of three situations: when the virus invades the lungs and causes huge viral pneumonia, when the virus invades endothelial cells everywhere and causes multiple organ failure, (and these are VIRAL characteristics, so if this virus multiplies less well in the lung tissue or other tissues it is likely to be milder, and a study showed 10 times slower replication in lung tissue - there's been no study yet on endothelial replication), and when the HOST's immune system over-reacts and causes a cytokine storm. So, the latter is a HOST's characteristic, and could apply even if this virus is milder. Certainly this is not mathematical and it's not all in equal parts because it depends on a number of other factors (most of them, again, related to the host, but also to the health system, to viral load, etc.), but for the sake of argument, let's suppose that a third of the Covid-19 deaths occur from each of these 3 mechanisms.

    Now, let's suppose that two thirds of them won't occur because this virus is milder. That still leaves out the other third.

    And here's the problem: if only a third of the Wuhan variant, then the Alpha and then the Delta deaths had occurred, that would have been great. But if this strain Omicron is 5 times more infectious than Delta which is 4 times more infections than Alpha (so it's 20 times more infectious than Alpha which was already a couple of times more infections than the Wuhan strain, so 40 times more infectious than the ancestral variants), and it ends up causing a HUGE number of cases (certain experts in your country talked of 1 million new cases per day which I find exaggerated but hey), a smaller percentage of huge number may still be a very large number, not to forget that if you overwhelm the healthcare system, you'll see "collateral damage" deaths in patients with other diseases (as in, a heart attack patient not finding an ICU bed and dying).

    Of all these death mechanisms, the massive viral pneumonia may be early, but the other two are later mechanisms and often are delayed by 3-5 weeks (and remember, one of them depends more on the host than on the strain of the virus).

    So, what if we've seen only 7 deaths because these are the ones from massive viral pneumonia and given that this virus replicates less well in the lungs it killed only a few people from this mechanism? And what if we'll see in the next couple of weeks, deaths multiplying by high numbers because of late cytokine storms?

    By which point, it would be too late to save those patients. So, a PRUDENT public health administrator might want to take some measures now, and keep observing the evolution of this virus' deaths a bit longer.

    If this virus is confirmed to be very mild and deaths from it very rare, with how infectious it is, likely all containment measures will eventually fail and it may even be a good thing, with the whole population catching it leading to herd immunity extinction of the surge. But if significant number of deaths occurs, then it is prudent to try to gain time and delay these severe outcomes, in the hope that the newest therapeutic tool, the oral antivirals, will pay off.

    Finally, there is another argument. Even mild cases can cause organ damage. So, if you avoid damaging the economy now with a lockdown, you may end up seeing that the sequelae from organ damage for the next few decades (lost productivity, curtailed life, expenses of treatment) will result in much bigger economic damage than a few weeks of lockdown.

    Frankly I think that opposing containment measures on economic grounds is kind of shorth-sighted for this virus. The economic damage may end up being a lot bigger in the long run, if no containment measures are taken. But I know that human beings are not wired to think this way (in terms of long-term damage rather than what is immediate and under our nose), thus why they may fear this virus that may kill them now, but keep smoking although this may kill them later.
     
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  16. Thedimon

    Thedimon Well-Known Member

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    What would be the odds of that? What are the stats of that occurring with Delta or other viruses?

    We already tried a few weeks of lockdown. Didn’t work.
    Also, don’t you realize that shutting down the economy and messing with trade might result in us crippling the economy and hospitals losing the ability to buy basic supplies. What good a hospital is for if it doesn’t even have cotton?

    Shutting down the economy will inflict massive damage. That’s a certainty. The scenario you described above is just a possibility.
     
  17. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Holy Toledo. I can see why you are worried. You can’t stay afloat in service industries like that.

    You have my sincere best wishes and sympathy.

    Are quarantines enforced there?
     
  18. Quantum Nerd

    Quantum Nerd Well-Known Member

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    All good points.

    As to the omicron variant being milder, let's do the following thought experiment, based on the idea that the lethality of the virus is caused by properties of the host, i.e. a fraction of the population that is susceptible to viral pneumonia and organ damage.

    So, let's assume a case mortality rate of the original strain of 2%, that means in a population of 100, if 50% get infected in a first wave, one will die from the virus, because they were the most susceptible.

    Now, in a second wave with a new variant (omicron), the virus faces a population of 99 (one has died in the first wave), but only one person remains highly susceptible to covid. That means the case mortality rate would have been reduced to roughly 1% in the second wave, because half of the highly susceptible population was already taken out in the first wave.

    The virus doesn't need to change at all in this scenario, but it is rather the host that, through natural selection, becomes adapted to the virus.

    Now, this is a highly over-simplified and hypothetical scenario that is going to be much more complex in real life, but I think the concept is important. 800,000 Americans that were highly susceptible have already been taken out in the first waves, so, naturally, the second wave will look "milder".
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2021
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  19. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    :applause::applause::applause:
     
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  20. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That is an excellent point.
    Still, there are too many susceptible people, by the millions, who by the force of sheer precautions and vaccination, have managed to remain safe up to Delta, but may now catch Omicron. These may be at an extraordinary risk, now facing the second most infection virus in the entire history of mankind.
     
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  21. CenterField

    CenterField Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Three just released British studies - for which I have no link because I'm in my Christmas break, not following the professional news so close; just got this from a newsletter sent to my mailbox but the actual article is behind a paywall I don't subscribe to - seem to confirm that Omicron causes milder illness than Delta.

    Both Merck's and Pfizer's oral antivirals got authorized by the FDA. Merck's, which is less efficacious and with more side effects including birth defects, is more restricted, including high risks patients who can't have access to other accepted treatments. Pfizer's, which has higher efficacy of 88% and 89% in avoiding hospitalizations and deaths in their studies and much fewer side effects, is authorized quite broadly, for any patient older than 12 and weighing more than 88 pounds, who is at high risk for developing severe Covid-19.

    The latter is a HUGE game changer. The United States' government has purchased 10 million complete courses of treatment (several pills per day, for five days, taken at home) and it will be available in a few days. A positive PCR test and a doctor's prescription are required. It will be free for the patients.

    Like I said many times, this treatment, Paxlovid, is equally efficacious for all variants of the SARS-CoV-2, present and future, because it hits the virus in a process that they all need to replicate, and is not subject to mutations.

    I think these combined news, with the fact that milder Omicron is replacing deadly Delta (yesterday, 74% of all US infections were Omicron; in a few days this will be 100%), signals in my opinion the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Likely Omicron will run all over the country, will infect millions, and will act as a natural vaccine, counting towards herd immunity; those who will contract it and might be at risk from it, will get the oral antivirals. The only obstacle in this rosy picture is that Pfizer doesn't have yet much production capacity for its brand new oral antiviral, and we have way more than 10 million people who might catch Omicron and still be at risk. Hopefully the production will increase in the next several month, Omicron will peak and fade relatively rapidly (because it spreads so fast), we may have a bumpy winter with overwhelmed hospitals, but Spring and Summer may bring life back to (almost) normal.
     
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  22. independentthinker

    independentthinker Banned

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    Now if we could get the vaccinated to stop spreading the virus, things would be much better.
     

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