Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

And we're all doomed again. Heavily mutated variant emerging in Southampton with 5 times as many mutations as the Delta variant.

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Guess you meant SouthAfrica...

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

This didn't need to happen if we didn't have unprotected portions of the population providing incubation chambers for this thing.
If the forum allowed profanity I could express my frustration at those of you who won't vaccinate.

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Cannot believe this un-informedness is still going on here...

It's not the un-vaccinated which "circulate and breed" the virus these days - it's the vaccinated people who are allowed "free mingling".

Please look at Denmark (one of the countries with the highest vacc-rate in europe):
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/c...e?country=~DNK

Due to that vacc-rate they introduced a "normal life again"-policy (free mingling for everybody) a few months ago.

Now look at the infection-rates last month (I've included germany, which allowed with "2G" a quite similar "untested mingling" of the vaccinated):
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/b...ountry=DEU~DNK

I'm quite sure the discovery of this new mutant comes as a relief to many politicians,
who now have a convenient "reason" to justify new lockdowns ...
(without the need for vindication of their own wrong decisions).

Olaf

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its always evolving

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No, it evolves as it infects, hence "who was unable to beat the virus". If infection were brought down it could not evolve.

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Guess you meant SouthAfrica...

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Oops, yes. I used to live in Southampton so I guess that was just muscle memory infecting my fingers.:rolleyes:

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Cannot believe this un-informedness is still going on here

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Yours is not an argument against vaccination, it's an argument in favour of social distancing measures (which I would support). Your argument rests on a logical fallacy.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

Yours is not an argument against vaccination...

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I was not making an argument "against vaccination" ...
(vaccination makes sense for a whole lot of people - especially for the elderly).

I was making an argument against the common misconception,
that it is the un-vaccinated who are the main-spreaders, when the opposite is the case in the meantime (in most european countries).

That's due to wrong political decisions, which outright encouraged the "mingling of the vaccinated" in most european countries
(to give a kind of "incentive" for the "still un-vacced").

If you think, that Denmarks or Germanys current infection-curves would look any different
(assuming a hypothetical vaccination-rate of 100%), then you are sorely mistaken...

The current vaccines are "leaking"!
They "slow down" the spreading (but not much, when mingling is allowed) - they do not prevent it!

As long as this is not understood, the whole story will continue to go on and on...

Olaf

its part truth,
the virus will evolve randomly and more u give it chance to stay inside your body, more time it has to change.
and we have 2 different people that gives the virus time:

- people with low immune system
- vaccinated people

the latter, is because the vaccine is actually "not" killing it. the virus is there.
and it will be there, infecting others and also "randomly" trying to infect the host, and if successful, its called "mutation".
since you believe you are immortal with your vaccine, there will be a big chance you infect someone else, since you are not careful.
you want to live your life and believe in the lies of the politicians and big pharma.
you pay for a certificate or you get a covidpass, you travel and you spread the virus, meanwhile older people and with low immune system dies, that is beneficial for the economy.

the one to blame are the vaccinated people, that are not understanding they are doing harm, and of course the politicians and big pharma that are playing with your life.

It's for debate where vaccine or not will sprout mutations. I'm on the vaccine will do it side but I won't go on arguing, especially with a pal on whether it's true or not.
Even if it's true there is no chance in the world for everyone to vaccinate, some have medical issues, like me, some are against it because freedom will dictate, some have no available source to it, so it is what it is, mutations will keep coming and that is not necessary a bad thing as from the beginning of medical observation of the covid viruses they tend to be less lethal, but , if you really want to call some words on the unvaccinted you can bash me all you want, I won't go report it back to you :bigyello:

I just want to report again that we are on total lockdown on the non vaxed here. I can't go nowhere, except supermarkets and pharmacies without a rapid test on the few places that we can go.
But the cases are going higher and higher. What is the logical conclusion here? Unvaccinated are locked and vaccinated can do whatever they like. Cases run wild...So?

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Originally Posted by baka

its part truth,
the virus will evolve randomly and more u give it chance to stay inside your body, more time it has to change.
and we have 2 different people that gives the virus time:

- people with low immune system
- vaccinated people

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Why do you think that? I agree with the first one, but the second one is irrational, unless you believe that the point of vaccination is to make a safe home for the virus.

The only thing a vaccine does is give your body a head start at recognizing, and attacking, any virus that has shown up. The unvaccinated aren't better protected, they're just slower, so why would being slower to respond mean that the virus has less time?

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the latter, is because the vaccine is actually "not" killing it. the virus is there.

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Why is that NOT happening in the unvaccinated? In fact, it IS happening in the vaccinated, it just has more time.

Ultimately, a vaccine isn't like an antibiotic. It's your own immune system that clears the virus. If you have the vaccine, then your immune system is already primed to attack the virus. If you aren't vaccinated, it takes a few days for your system to even recognize there's a threat. Therefore, the unvaccinated are much more effective at allowing the virus to mutate simply because they are much better incubators.

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Originally Posted by sapator

It's for debate where vaccine or not will sprout mutations. I'm on the vaccine will do it side but I won't go on arguing, especially with a pal on whether it's true or not.
Even if it's true there is no chance in the world for everyone to vaccinate, some have medical issues, like me, some are against it because freedom will dictate, some have no available source to it, so it is what it is, mutations will keep coming and that is not necessary a bad thing as from the beginning of medical observation of the covid viruses they tend to be less lethal, but , if you really want to call some words on the unvaccinted you can bash me all you want, I won't go report it back to you :bigyello:

I just want to report again that we are on total lockdown on the non vaxed here. I can't go nowhere, except supermarkets and pharmacies without a rapid test on the few places that we can go.
But the cases are going higher and higher. What is the logical conclusion here? Unvaccinated are locked and vaccinated can do whatever they like. Cases run wild...So?

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You've got a point there, but I'm not sure that there's a viable alternative. It seems like we have two extreme positions that might work (depending on how you define work):

1) The China model: Lock everybody down and do so with utter aggressiveness.
2) Do nothing at all and live or die with it.

The first model is currently struggling, but might work. They are dealing with hundreds of cases, and if those get away from it, option #1 will have failed. Of course option #1 would also destroy the economy, and it's not at all clear that most of the world could follow them. It certainly wouldn't be possible in the US.

The second model will result in significant damage, which will give economists and sociologists something to write papers about for decades. In fact, one side effect could be an increase in economist PhDs, which is a consequence that few would be happy with. But not to make too light of it, there are a couple drawbacks to that approach. The first is that it would be several decades before COVID wasn't a significant killer in the world. It would be more like the common cold with a far greater mortality rate and much more significant side effects. Eventually, that would die down to a more tolerable level, but there is no reason to expect that not to take decades, and it is possible that it would never really happen. After all, the flu kills a few tens of thousands each year in this country. COVID might die down to just that: A major killer of the elderly and immunocompromised.

Between those two extremes, what is there? One position between the two extremes is vaccination. It's pretty clear that people don't understand how vaccines work, or how our immune system works, but it's also clear that vaccinating EVERYBODY simply isn't going to happen. Even where the vaccines are available, they won't be adopted by a large portion of the population...without force, and that would be no better than the China model.

So, what alternative do you propose?

You won't like what I propose so instead of that let's say for the point of argument that I agree with you and we must vaccinate everyone.

Can we get into our heads that the initial vaccines and I don't see any official paper from a company, are the same ones yet?
So we are doing vaccines that where good against Alpha but mostly do nothing or almost nothing for the new variants.

The model in Greece and other countries proves that vaccinated people sprout the flue like crazy and come to a 3-4 months limited effect. So the particular vaccines is like doing water shots.
Are we OK this far?
Again, I'm saying that for the sake of the conversation I agree to vaccinate everyone.

So we have a couple of solutions:
A) Create new formula vaccines the will kill Delta.
That will just (as we have learned from the viruses) work, at the point that a new mutation will arise.
B)Vaccinate everyone with the already given formula. Pointless also we can't do it for everyone etc as I said before.
C)Monoclonal. These a expensive so even if we save a few, the others will overtake.
D)Lockdown.Yeah that helped a lot.
E)There are drugs already approved by the EU but as V.P. of the EU Margaritis (the obedient dog) Schinas admitted, they will not give them out until they are finish with the billion vaccine doses they have ordered.
F)Force the medical companies to give out the formula so we can improve it. It would be a cold day in hell that this will happen.First the profit, second we will see how they make them and possible, gooo, ughhh like this is so discustinggg ya knoooww?
F)The one you won't like and will ignite the forum again.

yeah. the mRNA is like a shortcut, will trigger the cells to create a protein that looks like the virus, and doing so it will trigger a immune-response as something is there (if you are unlucky it will also trigger an auto-immune response but thats another talk)

you think that this is good. and it is most of the time.
but not always. especially not viruses that mutates. like a flu.

theres a reason why you get a fever. its part of the immune system, while you have an elevated temperature, the immune-system is working,
of course if the fever is not going down after 1-2 weeks, it will start to take its toll.

during that time the body is learning and it will create an arsenal of protection against the virus and for the future.
that is why, if you recovered from covid, it will last longer and it will also protect against "more" variations (source from a swedish study)

that is why a vaccine last 1½-6 months depending on age and health, while recovered did have antibodies after 1 year (from that study, and still a good amount) so not sure how long that will last.
so, vaccine is false safety. and the immune-system did not do the whole-process, that is needed to "learn" and "get stronger".

the same is also infected that didnt show any symptoms. never gave the immune-system enough time to build.

antibodies are like small keys. they insert themselves into cells, blocking the virus to enter. you could say that antibodies are dead viruses that infect the cells with nothing expect taking the spot.
the virus will still be inside your body, up to 3 months until its all gone.

the reason why Im saying vaccinated are at fault is:
- they are protected. but how long? and how strong?
- if they get infected again, they dont know, the virus can be there up to 3 months.
- when the protection is starting to disappear, and they get infected again, its at that moment you are fatal against everybody else (without knowing since they believe they are protected)
- while protected, at least with the antibodies, the rest of the immune-system is not powerful enough against covid. thats when covid gets a chance to find other ways to infect you.

Among other reasons that I'm against vaccination is this:
Health minister suggests fourth vaccine dose amid rising fears of fifth COVID wave
https://www.timesofisrael.com/health...th-covid-wave/

You are becoming a junkie and let's be frank, it will never ever ever going to end as these kind of viruses mutate but we have learned to live with them. It's called endemic endemic endemic (yep 3 times) and if you just keep vaccinating, especially if you are in a non danger population zone, either age or enough anti bodies then I wash my hands on you.

The opportunity to curb this was squandered a long time ago. International travel should have been banned and urban centers ringed in by blowing up airports, highways, rail, and bridges. Instead we have swarms of diseased bees breeding and carrying variant strains around the planet, pooping it along the way as they roam.

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Originally Posted by dilettante

... travel should have been banned and
urban centers ringed in by blowing up airports, highways, rail, and bridges.
Instead we have swarms of diseased bees breeding and carrying...

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LOL, guess at a certain age "violence-rants" become a thing... ;)

Reminds me of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-NctipBvg
or this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI

Olaf

https://youtu.be/oxlYyZ08cEg

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Originally Posted by sapator

You won't like what I propose so instead of that let's say for the point of argument that I agree with you and we must vaccinate everyone.

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Actually, I would like to hear what you propose. I don't see a good solution, so I'd be interested in hearing any other solution. Vaccinating everybody would be great, but it's also clearly not possible. The new drugs that are likely to be approved in the next month or two provide another option (I hadn't read the lastest on them when I wrote those last posts), and I think there's a third that isn't ready to go to trials, yet.

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Can we get into our heads that the initial vaccines and I don't see any official paper from a company, are the same ones yet?
So we are doing vaccines that where good against Alpha but mostly do nothing or almost nothing for the new variants.

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I don't think I understand the first question, but based on the second sentence, what I think you mean is: The vaccines were developed against the initial strain, and aren't useful against the delta variant (the others seem to be insignificant), or possibly the newer one from South Africa that Funky mentioned. If you meant that the vaccine isn't effective against delta, I don't agree with that. As for the newer one...well, we'll just have to wait and see, but the mRNA vaccines can be changed as fast as the virus changes. What we clearly can't do is get vaccines out the door fast enough, and in sufficient quantities, for them to be the total solution.

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A) Create new formula vaccines the will kill Delta.

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I hope you don't mean that, because it would indicate that you don't understand what a vaccine is. Based on some of the posts in this thread, I'm not sure what some people understand about vaccines and what they don't. Vaccines don't kill viruses, and never have. They aren't antibiotics and don't act like them.

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B)Vaccinate everyone with the already given formula. Pointless also we can't do it for everyone etc as I said before.

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Not pointless, but I agree that we can't do it for everyone.

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C)Monoclonal. These a expensive so even if we save a few, the others will overtake.

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Yeah, I agree.

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D)Lockdown.Yeah that helped a lot.

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Worked for China, thus far, but nobody else could do what China did without creating total civil war, so, yeah, I agree with you there.

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F)Force the medical companies to give out the formula so we can improve it. It would be a cold day in hell that this will happen.First the profit, second we will see how they make them and possible, gooo, ughhh like this is so discustinggg ya knoooww?

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Surprise!! That is already happening with these new drugs from Pfizer and Merck that have proven to be so highly effective if taken (in pill form, which is the solution US citizens want for everything) within the first three to five days of symptoms showing up. Pfizer doesn't even have approval, yet, but have licensed the manufacturing out to other countries such that when approval comes through, manufacturing can ramp up overnight.

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F)The one you won't like and will ignite the forum again.

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The only one I think you left out was, "ignore it and hope for the best." I don't think that would ignite much of anything.

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Originally Posted by Schmidt

LOL, guess at a certain age "violence-rants" become a thing... ;)

Reminds me of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H-NctipBvg
or this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI

Olaf

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I'm beginning to think that nobody on here is young anymore.

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Originally Posted by baka

antibodies are like small keys. they insert themselves into cells, blocking the virus to enter. you could say that antibodies are dead viruses that infect the cells with nothing expect taking the spot.
the virus will still be inside your body, up to 3 months until its all gone.

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Mostly they are small keys that grab onto the virus itself and prevent it from binding to the cell, but either way would work. The mRNA vaccines are creating spike protein such that the antibodies are recognizing that, and binding onto that, not onto the cell protein that the spike protein binds to. That wouldn't be good.

One of the alternate solutions that is in the works would bind to a much smaller part of the virus. The spike protein is a sheath that covers up the protein that actually binds to the cell. That's the part that is mutating, but it is normally hidden in the sheath. Going after just that binding protein is looking like a viable solution that might not require a shot. It wouldn't be a vaccine, because it wouldn't be triggering the body to create antibodies, but would just attach to the binding protein and stop it from doing anything else. That's not on the market, yet, though, or even in human trials, as far as I know.

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the reason why Im saying vaccinated are at fault is:
- they are protected. but how long? and how strong?

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Yeah, but so what. Some vaccines confer lifelong immunity, others last less than a year. We live with all kinds. The key is understanding the profile of THIS vaccine.

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- if they get infected again, they dont know, the virus can be there up to 3 months.
- when the protection is starting to disappear, and they get infected again, its at that moment you are fatal against everybody else (without knowing since they believe they are protected)

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I haven't heard the three month thing, but it seems likely for those who are immunocompromised. For the average person, I would guess it's more like a week. You also aren't fatal against anybody. You aren't MORE dangerous than anybody else who has the virus, you are just less likely to know that you have it. If they also get it and don't know, then so what? If a virus infects you and does no damage, does it matter?

So, you are dangerous only to those who aren't vaccinated or are otherwise vulnerable, but what practical impact does that have? Being unvaccinated isn't better, aside from that fact that there is a chance you could die, and therefore not infect anybody, or that you could become so horribly sick that everybody knew to stay away, but this virus makes you infectious for days before symptoms appear, so neither of those advantages are statistically significant.

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- while protected, at least with the antibodies, the rest of the immune-system is not powerful enough against covid. thats when covid gets a chance to find other ways to infect you.

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If COVID doesn't get into the cell, it can't mutate. However, this argument has the same problem as the rest: Unvaccinated is still worse than vaccinated, whether or not this is true.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Surprise!! That is already happening with these new drugs from Pfizer and Merck that have proven to be so highly effective if taken (in pill form, which is the solution US citizens want for everything) within the first three to five days of symptoms showing up. Pfizer doesn't even have approval, yet, but have licensed the manufacturing out to other countries such that when approval comes through, manufacturing can ramp up overnight.
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If they are giving out the formula , that I doubt, then you should go with that solution. I'm sure the pill won't prove as effective as the vaccines against delta (I want to correct myself also when I said "kill", that was unintentional), let alone omicron (next if Zeta to the Greek cal) and we will be off the covid .
I'm betting that the whole vaccine sprout will end when they sell the last one and start giving medication,as, again, EU Margaritis (the obedient dog) Schinas admitted, they will not give them out until they are finish with the billion vaccine doses they have ordered.
Again, EU Margaritis (the obedient dog) Schinas admitted, they will not give them out until they are finish with the billion vaccine doses they have ordered.
Again, EU Margaritis (the obedient dog) Schinas admitted, they will not give them out until they are finish with the billion vaccine doses they have ordered.

Yeah, let's see:

Cost of one dose of Pfizer vaccine: $150-200.
Cost of projected five day course of Paxlovid (not yet on the market): $700.
Result of either one: You don't die of COVID, but can spread it.
Width of the average grin on Pfizer executives if you opt for the pill over the vaccine: 21.5 inches.
Width of the average mouth of Pfizer executive: 3.75 inches.
Amount of conditioning needed for Pfizer executives to be able to speak again after you choose the pill over the vaccine: 4.72 Jaggers.

So, yeah, I have no doubt that the pill will be EAGERLY pushed, considering the profit margin could be twice as great, or more.

Lol.
Well I would expect to unload all the already made vaccines before the pill.Unload till it get's to the point of an overload. Basic market strategies. Basic corporate market strategies that they don't give a fluk about peoples health.
And here is something to considered:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfizer-...riant-omicron/
"Pfizer testing its vaccine against new COVID-19 strain"
So i think the 'grin' should wait for a while.

Obedient dog.
After 2:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUhkfcWN_Sc
We have approved therapies but we won't order them until we finish the vaccine purchases.
Down boy down! Afr!Arf! Down down boy!Arff argggg grrrrr arf arf!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9FPhAJXGiA
20:15 .
Those are the official number of Greece Health organization on covid deaths. 2nd dose 1st dose and unvaccinated.
When you take the percentage of vaccinated vs death toll you end up with.
Mortality on the first dose 0,051% , Mortality on the second dose 0,016, Mortality on unvaccinated 0,011%. La-di-da.
And the high 1st dose rate is because they are "unloading" 2nd dose people to the 1st dose so they can justify the lesser percentage of deaths in intensive care beds. Yeah Greece government idiots.
So that's Greece official numbers that have been used from the chief government doctor "something like Fauci" and hunficton post. Those where collected to justify the vaccinated don't die story but they just made a boo boo. Poor idiot souls.

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And here is something to considered:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfizer-...riant-omicron/
"Pfizer testing its vaccine against new COVID-19 strain"
So i think the 'grin' should wait for a while.

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What's your point? Does this surprise you? Do you think they shouldn't test for effectiveness?

There is certainly a chance that some new variant will arrive that the current vaccines wont be effective against. But that's not news. What is it you want us to consider?

I just pointed out that possibly the pills would come later.

Frankly, the pills aren't a great alternative, except for people who aren't thinking it through. You won't get the pills until you've been sick and diagnosed, at which point you have to take them for five days...during which time you'll be sick for the first few days, though hopefully feeling better over that time. You'll have been infectious for days, you'll still be infectious during the time you are feeling sick. There's no advantage for the pills, except that there isn't the same amount of anti-vax misinformation swirling around them.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

except that there isn't the same amount of anti-vax misinformation swirling around them.

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Or vax depreciation, I should say.

So they are sorta kinda isolating South Africa. Too little, too late. The UK ("Crossroads of COVID") is already crawling with Omicron.

https://youtu.be/ABT6VmrHw50

I think the pill is a good idea. best idea so far.
if you get sick, and feel u need a medicine, take the pill.
it should be easy to buy, similar to paracetamol, so, just take a self-test and if u have it, take the pill.
forget about the vaccine, its just tons of work and useless most of the time, +99.4% of the people that gets infected survives.

I don't know where to start after that. We're doomed.

I only looked at these last ten posts or so and I don't see any mention of the Omicron variant. It is affecting world travel as far as travel bans, arguably too late, and also the stock market.

It is too early too say but there is quite a concern about the mutations:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/27/world...ntl/index.html

I'd like to think this is an over reaction or knee jerk reaction. Not a new normal we now with live with. Fingers crossed.

But I have t think as long as this is not considered a global problem where the richer countries vaccinate the poorer countries then the poorer countries are a Petri dish for the next mutation. I don't think globally there is that resolve until maybe a few cycle of death waves...

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Too little, too late. The UK ("Crossroads of COVID") is already crawling with Omicron.

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I believe your right, sadly. There's already at least one confirmed case in Belgium and we've had at least one flight into the UK from SA which is confirmed to have carried multiple covid cases (though not yet confirmed to be Omicron) which were allowed straight back into the population without quarantine. Couple that with epidemiologists who are saying that it had almost certainly spread outside SA before it was even identified and, yeah, chances are way higher than evens that it's here already. I'm not sure why you singled out the UK but you're 100% right that it's already too late for travel bans from SA.

But, hey, nobody listens to epidemiologists any more 'cause what do they now? It's not like they spend their lives studying this stuff. Far better to put our faith in our own flawed understanding of the science.:rolleyes:

What you need to consider about Omicron (the dots show how many straight letters left in the Greek alphabet ...................) is if it bypasses the vaccines.Also government CNN says so on the link but , you know,CNN. That would be a bummer,non?All these for nothing.
Also taken in consideration posts 3682 and 3683 what I can say at least for Greece is, how to put it gently so we won't get a mess again, vaccines are not that crucial as they let to believe.Frankly what will kick in is natural immunity as in the end everyone will be infected and less lethal mutations as Delta and hopefully if omicron proves to be more contagious but less lethal, we welcome it.
But will have to see.

P.S. Also isolation won't help as shown.It will pass. So better get on with it I say.

They may have singled out the UK both because we've had reports of the Omicron variant in the UK, and that you're practically neighbors. Only a few fish between us.

A virus needs our cells to replicate. It just contains the blueprints for the building, and our ribosomes do the construction. A vaccine causes the body to attack the virus. Those pills get into the cell and cause the construction to be messed up....except that the construction is being done by cellular mechanisms that are essential to our survival. Those pills are FAR more likely to have long term side effects than the vaccine, but some people do seem just fine with that. No doubt, some of those people will be the same ones that made such a big deal out of the vaccines being experimental.

Still, I do believe that baka has a good point. Since a large portion of the population won't get vaccinated no matter what, then the only thing we can do is hope to get to a point where we can live with the virus. As long as it kills no more than 100,000 people a year in the US, it won't be any worse than the seasonal flu. The pills could get us to that point. Yeah, they cost a LOT of money, but insurance will cover virtually all of that in the US. They'll also have side effects, and COVID does, as well...but most people already think the US lacks taste, so maybe we don't have all that much to lose?

Now a little about omicron. It is call that as O-micron. So a small O. The other O is O-mega so a big O (Ω) that is considered the letter of gods and universe. So when we get there. Either the gods will save us or it would be the time of total destruction...

So, what is the symbol for o-micron? Everybody likely knows the symbol for Omega, because it's commonly used in fraternity names, so anybody who has gone to a university in the US that has fraternities has likely seen Omega...somewhere. I also know the symbol for microns, but what is o-micron? Is that just micron and we tend to drop the o?

There are variations from ancient to today, that I'm not a philosopher to explain but you mainly get the same O as in Greek. I'm not sure about the micron story.
The omega is used more for verbs , thus having the tendency to do something. We get a lot of issues with omicron in emails as Greek and English seems quite the same (O vs Ο) and a lot of customers (and why in the life of me I can't explain) tend to put the wrong O that is a completely different character set and then they complain that they don't get their email :mad:
Same goes with other letters but the O is the most common mistake (see Α = Α a=α ,i =ι I = Ι, e=ε E=Ε ,k=κ K=Κ ,t=τ T=Τ) fortunately no omega on emails :)

The Omicron variant seems to be targeting younger people more, at least based on the experience to date in South Africa. People in their 20s and 30s.

We're just experiencing a Delta peak now locally. I'd guess that Omicron carriers have already arrived in small numbers though.

County-level time-lapse maps in the rate of infection have been interesting. It is clear that for some variants it has spread here from neighboring States (creeps in from the edges of the State), while for others it has bloomed out from Detroit or Ann Arbor which suggests contamination via air travel instead.

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Frankly, the pills aren't a great alternative, except for people who aren't thinking it through. You won't get the pills until you've been sick and diagnosed, at which point you have to take them for five days...during which time you'll be sick for the first few days, though hopefully feeling better over that time. You'll have been infectious for days, you'll still be infectious during the time you are feeling sick. There's no advantage for the pills, except that there isn't the same amount of anti-vax misinformation swirling around them.

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Plus the pills aren't very effective unless you catch the infection very early.

But like you said earlier, I don't see a good solution. There is to large of a percentage that wont get vaccinated, plus there doesn't seem to be enough desire to vaccinate the poorer counties. So this cycle of waves will continue. The best we can hope for is no deadlier, vaccine resistant variant showing up. Hopefully they can continue to improve treatment methods because this virus is going to be killing people for years to come.

I see the big two news networks approach of the new variant emerging. On CNN it is the lead story. On Fox I have had it on for ten minutes since the beginning and nothing. I did hear a remark about it on Fox the other day. To paraphrase, the announcer said "Here the progressives go again".

Edit:

I need to retract that a bit. Fox mentioned it in the next hour.

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The Omicron variant seems to be targeting younger people more, at least based on the experience to date in South Africa. People in their 20s and 30s

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I have heard that South Africa's young demographic might be skewing that. I don't know the truth of that though. What I have heard is that this variant seems to be a lot less deadly but, again, this may well be being skewed by the younger demographic of the people that have been found to have contracted it so far.

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I'd guess that Omicron carriers have already arrived in small numbers though.

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I suspect you're right. We've now got 9 confirmed cases in the UK and they don't seem to be connected to anyone travelling from South Africa. What we can take from that is that the virus had already spread outside South Africa before it was detected, meaning it's probably world-wide by now. Travel Bans will still help slow international spread by they'll by no means prevent it.

If, as I've said in post 3693, if is true then what I can predict is having a total lockdown here as the variant won't cover vaccines.
Also they will just mention that is very contagious and miss the part about lethality as they did with Delta.
Rest assure that if O is less lethal then we are getting into the endemic stage as I've said when Delta came out.It may well be that common flu will be on equal if not greater level of lethality at this point. So we should probably do a lockdown for the flu now?

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common flu will be on equal if not greater level of lethality

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Only if you're vaccinated. If you're unvaccinated it's far more lethal.

Yes, agreed for the common flu.
So how many of you have been vaccinated for the common flu the previous years?

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I have heard that South Africa's young demographic might be skewing that. I don't know the truth of that though. What I have heard is that this variant seems to be a lot less deadly but, again, this may well be being skewed by the younger demographic of the people that have been found to have contracted it so far.

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Yeah, right now we really don't have any significant data. But that doesn't stop the media from flooding the news with all the "what if" scenarios. Plus even if this is a mild strain, there is no predicting what the next variant will be like.

Here in the US it seems as long the daily death tolls is kept to @ 1,000 a day, a large enough and vocal enough minority think that's acceptable. So no meaningful progress to minimize the spread of the virus can be made. We really are a stupid species, we fight against our own survival. Intelligent life form, my arse.

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Originally Posted by wes4dbt

Plus the pills aren't very effective unless you catch the infection very early.

But like you said earlier, I don't see a good solution. There is to large of a percentage that wont get vaccinated, plus there doesn't seem to be enough desire to vaccinate the poorer counties. So this cycle of waves will continue. The best we can hope for is no deadlier, vaccine resistant variant showing up. Hopefully they can continue to improve treatment methods because this virus is going to be killing people for years to come.

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We just have to run out of Greek letters and the pandemic will be over. Therefore, Sapator can tell us when this will end (I don't know my Greek alphabet, and would rather hear from Sapator than to look it up).

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Originally Posted by sapator

Yes, agreed for the common flu.
So how many of you have been vaccinated for the common flu the previous years?

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Me.

But you do have a good point with this. Of course, the flu vaccine is always going after a moving target, since there are a few different, fairly different, variants circulating. The vaccine is kind of picking the most likely and working against that, which isn't the ONLY variant in circulation, so the flu vaccine has pretty variable effectiveness year to year, and often isn't all that great.

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Intelligent life form, my arse.

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So that's why you talk out of it:p (Sorry, that was unwarranted but just too damn tempting to pass up)

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We really are a stupid species, we fight against our own survival.

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I do find it particularly bizarre that it seems to be the same folks who rail against vaccines that rail against masks... and lock downs... and social distancing... It's like these people really are fighting against their own survival.

One generally positive thought about viruses: Viruses don't evolve towards deadly, they evolve towards infectious. The deadly is pretty much random so there's a fair chance that this variant will be mild in it's effects.

Deadly isn't totally random. The virus needs to not kill the host before it has a chance to spread. That means that there is SOME pressure pushing towards less deadly. It may not matter for COVID, though, because it has been well established that the virus has a chance to spread for a few days before any symptoms show up, at which point whether the host dies or not probably makes no difference.

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whether the host dies or not probably makes no difference

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Except that if the host lives it can be infected again. Kind of the reverse of not wanting to kill the host.

I'd be a bit surprised if that mattered, though only a bit. There isn't any intelligence going on here. As long as the virus can reproduce, it will. Where, when, why....it doesn't matter. However, it does matter to the host, so there are immune systems. That would suggest that the virus doesn't care, but the host does. Reinfection keeps the virus spreading, but if that reinfection is at such a low level that the host doesn't care, then the virus won't spread as fast as it otherwise might, which would be a negative pressure compared to a virus that spread faster without regard for the host. So, you end up with a variety of forces acting in all directions. It's a bit hard to say which will matter the most, but sick without dying seems to be the sweet spot for a virus.

You also develop your natural immunity and store in memory cells for future re infections. If my memory server correctly the covid re infection with the same mutation was about 1000 in 1 billion.

Why would you say 1000 in 1 billion? That's a one in a million thing to do.

I was trying to show the megatude :D , it's marketing techniques, I'm amazed you asked.

So this just came in. Our prime idiot dictator born of a million idiot chicken nuggets decided to give a fine of 100Euros per month to those that are over 60 and do no vaccinate.
That shows 2 things.
1)He is an idiot.
2)It's becoming a general acceptance that the vaccine do squat for people under 60, I was saying 65+ and I'm probably more accurate than the idiot.

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So that's why you talk out of it (Sorry, that was unwarranted but just too damn tempting to pass up)

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Try harder next time. Saying it was "unwarranted" doesn't change what it is.

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Originally Posted by sapator

I was trying to show the megatude :D , it's marketing techniques, I'm amazed you asked.

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Well...it worked. Advertising is supposed to catch your eye, and that caught my eye. Funny how that works.

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Our prime idiot dictator born of a million idiot chicken nuggets

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I admit that I have never gotten up near a million, but I'd also say that I really can't evaluate the intelligence of any of the ones that I have consumed. Do you rank your chicken nuggets on intelligence? That would be pretty clever.

Yep. But it's a negative rank.

= Negative nugget.

Those are the best kind: You eat them and lose weight!

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Originally Posted by sapator

I was trying to show the megatude :D , it's marketing techniques, I'm amazed you asked.

So this just came in. Our prime idiot dictator born of a million idiot chicken nuggets decided to give a fine of 100Euros per month to those that are over 60 and do no vaccinate.
That shows 2 things.
1)He is an idiot.
2)It's becoming a general acceptance that the vaccine do squat for people under 60, I was saying 65+ and I'm probably more accurate than the idiot.

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Why not 30000 in a trillion then.

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2)It's becoming a general acceptance that the vaccine do squat for people under 60, I was saying 65+ and I'm probably more accurate than the idiot.

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Not by the medical experts or the majority of people in general. @ 25% of the COVID deaths are people under 65yrs old. Why would the vaccine only help people 65 and older.

No that is not good marketing technique.
You just rise to a level that it seems high but logical.
Ah you IT yuppies :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker

Those are the best kind: You eat them and lose weight!

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That would be excellent! But it's for airheads I'm afraid.