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44 thoughts on “Here’s what you need to know about Omicron”

    1. Vog46

      We also know its affecting republican counties more so than Democrat counties:
      https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate

      {snip}
      NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

      In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."
      {snip}

      "get infected with COVID you will be OK"
      yeah, right

      1. painedumonde

        Yeah, it's probably a safe conclusion that Omicron made its debut worldwide without anyone knowing. They'll retro most of the data by extrapolation with sequencing and antibody comparison, but it's definitely more widespread than just SA.

        I'm reading reports that smaller and poorly served pharmacies are inundated. It's bittersweet: on one hand the wall that prevented widespread vaccination seems to be crumbling and on the other that there was a wall in the first place.

        1. Vog46

          yup.
          Herd immunity and post in
          fection immunity folks have gone quiet.
          when your kids are exposed the world changes.
          Now if only we could vaccinate for cancer maybe MTG will shut up too.

  5. Justin

    I live in Michigan and a number of my coworkers were out these last few weeks due to Covid among family. One came back to work today and told me that many of his unvaccinated extended family were ill and one has been in hospital twice. He and his wife were both vaccinated and never got sick. Their teenage son was ill and that prompted their quarantine. Not sure of his vaccination status.

    So… here is what we do know. Omicron will do a number on the unvaccinated just like delta has done. And I just don’t I give a hoot about them anymore. Their fate is in their own hands. I’ll just steer clear. And I’ll give a smug smile when / if the willfully resistant suffer or die. Marcus Lamb. Anti-vax religious fanatic. Dead from Covid.

    “Wayne County canvasser William Hartmann dies after contracting coronavirus”

    Hartmann, 63, had been critical of the COVID-19 vaccine in multiple posts on Facebook. In August, he accused Democrats of needing mask and vaccine "panic" to "screw up" elections.

    He and fellow Republican Wayne County canvasser Monica Palmer gained national attention in November 2020 after they initially refused to certify the results of the presidential election but then changed course and approved the tallies.

    Oh well. One more dead republican is always a good thing no matter what.

    1. Justin

      It’s just not that complicated. In Michigan again…

      ““I think that this is absolutely a time of reckoning for health care, especially on the hospital side,” Hahn said of the prolonged delta surge combined with staffing shortages and worker exhaustion. Elmouchi said at the beginning of this week, 87% of those staying in Spectrum Hospitals with COVID-19 were not vaccinated, with unvaccinated patients accounting for 92% of the COVID-19 patients in the ICU and 94% of the COVID-19 patients on ventilators.”

      The worst part is that this affecting people with non Covid illness and injuries.

      https://www.woodtv.com/health/coronavirus/leaders-of-west-michigan-hospitals-to-address-covid-19-surge-friday/

      1. Justin

        “America’s Got Talent” contestant Jay Jay Phillips has reportedly died from COVID-19. He was 30.”

        Unvaccinated. Oops.

  6. HokieAnnie

    No I disagree Kevin -- for instance in Washington, DC the other week they lifted their mask mandate for indoors (too soon IMO) but today they put it back. That is sensible to do. Also contingency planning for having to shift to remote elementary school for kids too young to be vaccinated and capacity to quickly get folks vaccinated/boosted.

    But other than that, no don't jump the gun yet.

  8. rational thought

    What makes it harder is that most of the reports now are coming from South Africa. Which being a developing country means that the reports are not as easy to extrapolate to usa. Both because of them not having the resources to as reliably gather data . And because of the big differences in their population in demographics and health conditions.

    Once it gets established and data comes in from more developed nations closer to usa, will have a clearer picture .

    But pretty clear that

    1) it is probably more base transmissible ( i.e. if no immunity). How much still murky and possible not at all.

    2) it definitely should be somewhat immune evading ( for prior infections or vaccine) simply because it has mutations. And real world evidence supports that too. Note any mutation will evade prior immunity to some extent. The vast majority that die out aret far less base transmissible and that more than offsets..

    3) as the mutations seem clustered on the spike , which is all the vaccine antibodies recognize , any immunity evasion should be more dangerous for vaccine immunity vs natural.

    For natural immunity from delta , since the antibodies recognize more parts of the virus and not just the spike, there has to be some remaining immunity. For the vaccine, a fear was that so many spike mutations might mean vaccine was 0% effective vs omicron. So far , looks like not the case as still seems being vaccinated helps vs not . Likely just not as much as prior.

    And was possible that the mutations lowered base transmissibility more than it evaded natural immunity, making it less transmissible than delta if already infected even if more for vaccinated. But does not seem likely at all given what is happening.

    4) but most important issue I think is whether and by how much it is less deadly and causes less sickness. Strong but conflicting evidence that it is less deadly but maybe not as dramatically as initially hoped, but still maybe lot. Yes south African hospitalizations are up a lot . But, if that is due to a huge very fast spread not being picked up fully , so omicron natural immunity will build quickly and the wave subsides real fast too, that is real good news. If so, should start seeing case grow slow fairly soon.

    And , if it turns out that omicron really is much less deadly, and also that natural immunity from omicron itself works just fine ( as it should for omicron at least ), then we might WANT to encourage omicron to spread .

    Although realistically, with the few cases we already see here, if it really is much more transmissible than delta, at least for those with some immunity, then one policy goal that is pointless is trying to stop it. If we could not stop delta , ain't stopping this.

    1. weirdnoise

      There is evidence developing that many of the people in South Africa that are getting Omicron are either vaccinated or previously infected, and as a result have milder symptoms. Demographically, they are younger. Also, hospitalization numbers were recently updated (a lot of missing data behind early reports) and are showing exponential increase.

      The idea that Omicron might be the magical variant that turns COVIN-19 into the flu is looking pretty unlikely.

    2. nasruddin

      "if it turns out that omicron really is much less deadly ... then we might WANT to encourage omicron to spread ."

      Isn't Long Covid an unspoken major risk here? When are we likely to know about omicron's ability to do that - won't it take months?

  9. glipsnort

    I don't know of any evidence at this point that Omicron is less deadly. Initial spread in South Africa was largely among young people, most of whom had already been infected in earlier waves and who therefore probably had some degree of immunity. One unsettling report is that hospitalizations among young children (<4 years) are markedly higher than in previous SA waves.

    1. rational thought

      What you say is just wrong literally and I guess you do not really believe it literally.

      There is plenty of evidence that omicron is less deadly , in so many south African doctors saying that is what they are seeing as compared to prior waves ( which makes the fact that they ate younger discounted). It is just that this evidence is too preliminary and uncertain and somewhat contradicted by other indications that any firm conclusion is not yet warranted.

      Sorry if I am being picky here but this is a pet peeve of mine . I.e. saying there is " no evidence " when you mean that you do not think that such evidence is very good or that the totality of all evidence ( some of which indicates the opposite ) supports the opposite conclusion .

      I would think that the very preliminary evidence we now have makes it more likely than not that omicron is less deadly , with a decent amount of confidence . And that is the direction that theoretically is more likely.

      But, for myself and all the others who got fully vaccinated on schedule, the question is whether omicron or delta is more deadly for someone fully vaccinated with current vaccines. Basically whether any less inherent deadlines offsets any reduced vaccine effectiveness in preventing illness. And have no good guess on that.

  14. Vog46

    The S AFrican science community is quite good actually.
    I wonder what influenced them to sequence this case to determine it was a new variant
    Preliminary indications are that previous infections give no protection to Omicron
    Vaccines seem effective but to what degree?
    Study after study have shown that many people DO NOT develop antibodies after contracting coivd. Studies at U Penn, in Germany and other developed nations show that post infection immunity varies much the same as the symptoms do in people.
    Vaccines provide measurable immunity.
    Preliminary indications out of S Africa indicate vaccinations do what they are intended to do - reduce serious symptoms and help prevent death. Post infection immunity is looking more and more like a losing proposition and the ONLY reason for "wanting" this seems political. There are no correlations to older diseases and or pandemics. The world has changed, our overall health has changed and politicians are using whatever tools they have including WANTING the pandemic to continue (to blame the other party).

    Faucci and others were waiting for an immunity evading variant to come along. The fact that it happened 4 to 5 months earlier than expected, is worrisome.
    Omicron spreads faster and has many more mutations than ANY previously identified variants have.
    a 300% increase in cases in two weeks in S Africa is stunning. The rise in cases is steeper than it was for DELTA and thats with a similar vaccine rate (which is very bad).
    We have about 111 million people that are not vaccinated still.
    Omicron took the DELTA mutation and turned it on its head. Pediatric hospitalizations in S AFrica are rising.

    Do we know enough to make policy changes here? Probably not, not yet.
    The real issue here is that if the pharma companies can tweek their vaccines in 90 to 120 days it may already be too late.
    It's not the seriousness of the disease that we need to worry about just yet.
    Its the fact that we have another mutation so soon after DELTA. Too many people catching it and spreading it will only lead to more mutations

    1. zaphod

      An article appeared in the Washington Post today claiming evidence that covid has picked up mutations from a common cold virus that make covid more infectious, and possibly less dangerous. This would be consistent with the normal course of virus evolution.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/04/omicron-coronavirus-transmissible-cold-variant/

      Many questions remain, of course. To me, the biggest one is whether any immunity conferred by Omicron extends to infections by Delta? That should determine whether Omicron will replace Delta as the dominant strain, as Delta has now replaced all of the previous strains. I am not sure evidence from South Africa is sufficient at this time to make a judgement on that.

      1. glipsnort

        It's an interesting hypothesis but the evidence for it is very thin. And of course, even if we knew where those three amino acids came from, it would tell us nothing about whether they made the virus more or less transmissible or more or less virulent.

      2. rational thought

        I understand their is a possibility that the genetic sequence came from hiv and not common cold as it is found in hiv too. And, even if it came from a cold, might have been in someone with hiv as that allowed the cold and covid to coexist at same time.

        And might this explain why this is now the 2nd variant coming from South Africa since they have so much hiv? And maybe a warning that we have to monitor hiv patients for weird mutations and not just covid, as they can be a danger to everyone.

        But this might be good news if it explains why omicron is less deadly and causes mild sickness . It is sort of inheriting that from the cold too.

        I assume you are thinking that , if getting natural immunity from omicron does not protect well against delta , that , once omicron sweeps through and infects most people, the transmissibility advantage will switch back to delta and it will become dominant again. And then switch back to omicron after the delta wave. And ad nauseum.

        But look up original antigenic sin. For similar viruses, your antibodies remain more effective against the FIRST type you were infected with, even after subsequent infections with a different strain . Just read about that today .

        And I think this means that , if infected by an earlier strain like delta first , a subsequent omicron infection will not mean your antibodies will now be best against omincron. They will remain best against delta . So likely omicron will retain an advantage and replace delta permanently.

        And why was this concept not published before? And how does it apply to vaccines ? Was this info hushed up so as not to discouraged vaccination?

        I have to expect that , if vaccinated with current vaccine developed for original, that has same effect in this issue as first infection with original. So your immune system remains permanently primed to best fight original. Which is not great as original is basically extinct .

        And now I question a bit my decision to get vaccinated in April, when I could see delta was taking over . Sounds like getting infected with delta first while unvaccinated will provide better long term immunity against delta than getting infected with delta after being vaccinated. I think I still would have made same decision but with less certainty.

        And of course , not getting vaccinated and then catching delta before omincron gets here and becomes dominant is not optimal as still had to go through delta without vaccine and are now primed for delta when it is onicron that is dominant.

        Best off are those lucky or very cautious who managed never to get infected and never get vaccinated and finally get infected first with omicron . They get the best long term immunity whole being infected by one causing least sickness. I just guess there are very few left in that category after this delta wave is done anyway.

        1. zaphod

          "I assume you are thinking that , if getting natural immunity from omicron does not protect well against delta , that , once omicron sweeps through and infects most people, the transmissibility advantage will switch back to delta and it will become dominant again."

          Yes, except if this is the case, Delta might not decline even in the midst of an Omicron wave. In a sense, in this case the two variants would behave more like separate species.

          "Best off are those lucky or very cautious who managed never to get infected and never get vaccinated and finally get infected first with omicron ."

          Only if Omicron antibodies are effective in protecting against Delta. That remains to be determined. But I think that Pfizer and Moderna are already working on modifications to their vaccines based similar hypotheses.

          1. rational thought

            But you are missing the point re original antigenic immunity .

            So, if someone got first infected with delta and then got reinfected with omicron, their immune system remains primed more for delta and not omicron. So your question as to whether " omicron natural immunity " is effective against delta is not relevant for that person. And those first vaccinated or infected with original remain primed mostly against original.

            Your issue would be relevant in a population which is majority unvaccinated and never infected and then has an omicron wave infect most. But I doubt such a place exists anymore.

            1. zaphod

              Here is my train of thought: We know that fully vaccinated persons are reasonably well protected against Delta, but not as well as against the original. So there is still a large pool of vaccinated and especially unvaccinated who can still get Delta.

              Now Omicron comes along, and can potentially cause infections in many. Certainly among the unvaccinated, and maybe among many vaccinated, depending on how effective the current vaccine is against the new mutation. This is not yet known.

              Many in this group will contract Omicron, especially the unvaccinated. The question is whether then having acquired some immunity to Omicron, will they also gain some to Delta? If so, then this newly infected population will no longer be available for infection by Delta, the more dangerous variant, and the Delta wave abates.

              If not, then Delta continues for quite some time, and people can get both Omicron AND Delta.

  16. Vog46

    This would be the second time we have relaxed restrictions, only to be hit with another variant.
    When will we ever learn?
    I'm not saying we should have permanent restrictions. Far from that - but Americans are spoiled. We want everything and anything our way. We want no restrictions on our lives at any time for any reason. We want to remain un-healthy and STILL go wherever we want including in confined spaces like airplanes and ships. We will LIE about our health (like some of our sports stars) we will lie about the overall health of our own states (Like DeSantis in Florida. We will provide quack cures - just because.

    If this was an INDIVIDUAL freedom that had NO IMPACT on others around us that would be different. Gun freedom? You gotta deliberately pull the trigger or make it easy to get to for OTHERS to pull the trigger.
    But in a pandemic, it's different. You can spread the disease BEFORE you even know YOU have it - or just by getting close to someone. Thats the difference. It's why companies SHOULD be able to set their own requirements - to protect their profits. They require vaccines, PPE in the form of masks as a requirement to work to PROTECT THEIR BOTTOM LINES.

    Again this is the second time we have let our guard down and are now facing potential repercussions. I don't feel like I should get sick just because some idiots want to "own the libs" or make Biden responsible for COVID. I don't hold Trump responsible. He wasn't great at addressing COVID, but he didn't CAUSE it.
    Don't make me sick. I take care to get measurable protection from the vaccine. I wear masks out in public even though I don't have to. I carry a gun from time to time. I'm licensed, and trained, and practice.
    I want everyone to be the good guy with a mask, with a vaccine.
    Otherwise? You deserve everything you get from COVID. Just do;t spread it to me. Don't let your malfeasance affect me

      1. zaphod

        You make the common error of narcissists that since you don't care, nobody does. I care, and many do. We would prefer not to suffer and die in the near future. After evading life's booby-traps for the better part of a lifetime, it would be silly to be deprived of present well-being by letting our guard down.

        1. Spadesofgrey

          You make the mistake you know what is going on. Failing to decipher the truth then demanding you follow your truths.

    2. rational thought

      But realistically you are saying we need permanent restrictions. Because it is now quite clear that covid is endemic and not disappearing. So any temporary restrictions that reduce the spread only push off the cases to a somewhat later date . So what are you accomplishing with the social disruption?

      With an endemic virus, case numbers will settle at the point where the extra natural immunity produced by those infection numbers ( generally then boosting waning immunity from prior infection) balances the waning of either old natural or vaccine immunity.

      You can lower the equilibrium case number through continual vaccinations ( as they substitute for some number of infections even if less effective than natural immunity) and permanent restrictions ( by reducing the base R to closer to 1).

      But temporary restrictions only " flatten " the curve , pushing cases that would be at peak out into times when cases are lower, but do not change the end total cases . They make sense only if a wave threatens to overwhelm health care ( this delta wave mostly below that level) or if buying time to develop a vaccine . But they make little sense in slowing the initial spread of omicron.

  17. cld

    I had the Pfizer vaccine initially, but yesterday, per my request, I got the Moderna booster.

    Remember that movie where Robert De Niro was Al Capone and smashed a guy's skull with a baseball bat? It's like that.

  18. Vog46

    Headaches are common with Moderna. Remember the Moderna booster is still double the potency of the other boosters.

    Anyway. It beats getting the virus and not having ANY antibodies. The evidence is mounting the post infection immunity is not only weaker but is not detected in many people

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/09/05/36-of-those-who-had-covid-19-didnt-develop-antibodies-study-says/?sh=78827c8b5f60
    {snip}
    A study just published in the journal Emerging Infectious Disease found that 36% of those who had had Covid-19 didn’t have antibodies against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in their blood.
    {snip}

    But wait thats only 72 people
    {snip}
    For example, as described by a publication in EClinical Medicine 5% of 698 people in Israel remained seronegative despite having tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus
    {snip}

    {snip}
    nother study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, found this rate to be even higher (20%) among a group of New Yorkers.
    {snip}

    {snip}
    Then there was the study from Germany published in the Journal of Clinical Virology which reported a whopping 85%.
    {snip}

    4 Studies. 2 American, 1 Israeli and 1 German - just in this one article

    Stop. Stop with the post infection immunity BS. Back just before DELTA we wondered why kids were not getting sick. Their bodies didn't even respond to the early mutations it seemed. But the UK study intrigued some in the field and left a burning question.
    Now we know the answer. Post Infection immunity vary from person to person, and far too many don't have any antibodies after they get COVID

    This variant is evading vaccine protection but is spreading FASTER than DELTA for both unvaccinated and vaccinated alike. The folks that wanted herd immunity were wrong. The ONLY measurable protection you can rely on is the vacccine protection - and that has to be monitored for both it's resistance and longevity
    We are trying to coral a living thing. But if your herd is Bison, and the next one is Holsteins your immunity doesn't do much good

    1. rational thought

      You continue to make ridiculous statements and come to absurd conclusions.

      The idea that somehow omicron or any variant could totally eliminate natural immunity while still leaving vaccine immunity somewhat effective is compete crap. Possible that a variant with mutations outside of the spike that the vaccine recognizes could reduce natural immunity ( but not eliminate it) but do nothing against vaccine immunity. But a variant that mutates the spike has to reduce vaccine immunity by more than natural , because vaccine bets everything on the spike.

      Even if you think natural immunity is only 50% as strong as vaccine, this variant should reduce vaccine immunity more . Say it reduces vaccine from 80% effective to 40% ( by half ) and natural from 45% to 30% ( by one third ) . That is at least conceivable. But total elimination of natural immunity whole leaving vaccine is just inconceivable by theory and science.

      And you spout that preliminary indications are that prior infections give NO protection from omicron which is simply not true . Any indication that vaccine immunity remains at all effective is also evidence that natural immunity does too. Yet you just state something ad true based on nothing.

      And you just continue to discuss immunity as only being the result of antibodies although you have been reminded this is not true a number of times . And also assuming that simply counting number of antibodies also tells you how effective immunity is.

      A reason why some infected who do not get very sick never develop long term antibodies is thar their immune system had determined that, for that person, antibodies are NOT NEEDED. The immune system remains with a memory of how to make antibodies if reinfected and can tool up fast enough if that happens to knock it down again . The immune system cannot make antibodies permanently against every single infection it ever had . It needs to prioritize and save capacity for other threats too.

      To some extent, the double shot vaccine " tricks " the immune system to produce antibodies that individual does not really need and may be detrimental to that person ( but can still benefit society as a whole) .

    2. D_Ohrk_E1

      Serological tests only check for reactive antibodies, not T-cell/B-cell memory.

      Vaccination with current design might not work at all, other than through the trigger of T-cell/B-cell memory to identify something that sorta kinda looks like that original Alpha S1 target.

      In which case, the prime difference between how you get to programming them T-cell/B-cell memory is the level of risk of death and/or severe infection with long-COVID outcomes.

  19. Vog46

    4 respected journals of Virology and medicine and you know better?
    So says the guy who started off a post saying "my definition of herd immunity is better"
    We will soon find out about vaccine efficiency against Omnicron - south Africa is poorly vaccinated and breakthough cases WILL RISE with Ominicron. - but we KNEW all of that already as the head of Pfizer and Moderna both said they would need to tweek their formulas

    Post infection immunity is not as great as you continuously say it is
    Have a great life Rational. I hope you survive all of this
    goodbye

    1. Spadesofgrey

      Like you understand what is going on. Your making up stuff and mumbling. Omicron's changes weaken it to spread. You need a nose rip. Even Doctors are sick of it.

  20. zaphod

    I just checked the Covid Data Explorer. There is some data from South Africa showing that Omicron now represents 90% and Delta 10% there.

    https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&minPopulationFilter=1000000&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&hideControls=true&Metric=Variants&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~GBR~ITA~DEU~KOR~ZAF~BRA

    Other information from the graphs on this site indicate cases are spiking, but deaths are not. Good. But to me, it is still not clear whether Omicron is displacing Delta, or simply adding to it. Even though Delta is at only 10%, it is 10% of a larger share, so it may not have declined in absolute terms.

    Meanwhile, back in the USA, other charts on this site indicate Covid deaths (Delta) are once again on the rise. Must be another instance of American exceptionalism.

    1. zaphod

      Because of inexplicable (to me) technical details, to see the relevant graph I tried to link to, you must highlight the entire link and then right-click on it and choose "open in a new window".

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