Omicron variant concerns
So basically just another variant that shows mild symptoms among vaccinated populations. We (the G-20 / wealthy nations) need to get more vaccines to African nations asap.
sbenois said:
It really would be nice if this scenario comes true. Unusual symptoms, lots of cases but mild illness overall - we should be so lucky. I suppose it is a pipe dream but wouldn't it be nice if there was some variant with a mutation that made it spread with alarming speed and even caused breakthrough infections - but was a mere paper tiger when it came to actually causing sickness? It would magically be like a world-wide vaccine because it infected everyone but only had the punch of a whiffle ball instead of one of Thor's fastballs. If the immune response to it had the right cross-reactivity to the other variants we'd be okay and could get back to discussing the social ramifications of purple heirloom carrots.
Hey, as Judy would often say:
Just confirmed: omicron has arrived in Australia - 2 cases in New South Wales
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2021/nov/28/australia-covid-news-omicron-corona-nsw-victoria-nt-uk-europe-politics-canberra-morrison-andrews-perrottet-gunner-africa-
Looks like a rugby match in England will be a good test case for if and how omicron spreads among vaccinated populations ...
More than 80,000 rugby fans who attended the England versus South Africa game at Twickenham last weekend are being urged to come forward for testing if they have Covid symptoms in a bid to stamp out the new omicron variant before it gets a grip on the British population.
The game operated a strict Covid pass system meaning that spectators had to show evidence of double vaccination and a negative lateral flow test but the new variant is thought to be highly contagious and may be able to evade vaccines.
Again, Israel is very proactive.
I'm thinking centuries of oppression has made the Jewish people extremely recognizant of risk, very survival oriented.
I hope our current vaccine is effective against this variant. My other hope is when all is said and done that this is a big ado over nothing, that is, it is not more contagious nor more deadly. But, often what we hope is not what we get.
The smart thing is to be proactive. No one assumes we we will get into a serious accident when driving somewhere and likelihood of such is very small. But proactive does mean air bags and putting on our seatbelts.
The newest variant, which was first detected in South Africa and which experts say may spread two to six times more quickly than the delta variant, is confirmed in one person and suspected in seven others in Israel. Only three of the suspected cases had recently returned from abroad, raising concern that the variant’s transmission has already begun within Israel.
At a three-hour cabinet meeting on Saturday night, the government decided to tighten quarantine rules, reinstate the Israeli security service Shin Bet’s role in surveilling the cellphones of people confirmed to be carrying the variant, and require events of more than 50 participants to apply a Green Pass system, by which participants must show proof of vaccination or recovery.
In an interview with 103FM radio on Sunday, Health Ministry Director General Nachman Ash said that Israel’s response “isn’t hysteria, but concern. … We want to at least be able to delay the variant’s entry into Israel.”
Israelis returning from any non-red country, including the fully vaccinated, will also be required, in addition to taking a PCR test on landing as has already been the protocol, to enter a three-day home quarantine, after which they must receive negative PCR test. (While here, good luck in routinely getting a PCR test.)
The government announced plans to obtain 10 million PCR test kits modified to detect the new variant, launch a pilot program to install air filters in classrooms and day-care facilities, and expand sewage testing across the country to detect new cases.
RTrent said:
Again, Israel is very proactive.
I'm thinking centuries of oppression has made the Jewish people extremely recognizant of risk, very survival oriented.
I hope our current vaccine is effective against this variant. My other hope is when all is said and done that this is a big ado over nothing, that is, it is not more contagious nor more deadly. But, often what we hope is not what we get.
The smart thing is to be proactive. No one assumes we we will get into a serious accident when driving somewhere and likelihood of such is very small. But proactive does mean air bags and putting on our seatbelts.
The newest variant, which was first detected in South Africa and which experts say may spread two to six times more quickly than the delta variant, is confirmed in one person and suspected in seven others in Israel. Only three of the suspected cases had recently returned from abroad, raising concern that the variant’s transmission has already begun within Israel.Click to Read MoreThe government announced plans to obtain 10 million PCR test kits modified to detect the new variant, launch a pilot program to install air filters in classrooms and day-care facilities, and expand sewage testing across the country to detect new cases.
The Israelis listen to their best and their brightest. They respond to science and security. Survivors, yes, This is part of it, heck as my Israeli friend reminds: “Israel, Fighting terrorism since 1948.”
Stories I'm seeing out of South Africa today say that the new variant's symptoms are relatively mild, albeit in healthy people. Not clear what it ill do to the elderly and vulnerable.
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
dave said:
We be fcudek.
it’s early but there’s still reason to believe according to Scott Gottlieb that the vaccines and boosters will afford protection. And as Dave posted, there is a report out of S. Africa that the Doctor who first sounded the alarm says her patients are dealing with mild symptoms.
Here is a NYT article that goes into the COVID-19 lineage with some dates and help distributions that give some context. I like those 3-D models of the spike protein.
Protein macromolecules have thousands of surface points that determine how they interact with each other on a larger scale. Each amino acid in a protein's peptide chain has surface interactions with other amino acids that are mere angstroms apart. Mutations that cause an amino acid substitution cause physical changes at that locale that are easy to see with microscopes and x-ray crystallography. What isn't so clear are the minute changes further away from the amino acid substitution site that occur because all the amino acids are linked together and twisted around and folded in on each other to make the final shape. On top of that, each macromolecule in our cells is constantly vibrating and shifting between two or more conformation states. Again, affecting these interactions in the space of angstroms.
Sometimes all it takes is a single amino acid swap to completely eliminate a protein's ability to function like it normally does. In other cases, a change will have negligible effects and the mutated protein still functions pretty close to its prior self. In omicron's spike protein, all those different mutations have their influences compounded by the other mutations to make some unpredictable changes. Knowing how macromolecules behave and the odds created by those mutations, it's miraculous this protein still can latch onto the cells COVID-19 invades but here we are. It is also incredible to see it still working in spite of those sites where some amino acids have been deleted from the basic sequence. Obviously they weren't directly important to the ability to bind target cells and their indirect influences were compensated for in their absence.
All those differences will also affect an antibody's affinity for the spike protein. Thus, the ones our vaccines help us produce may not work as well. That doesn't mean we're in for a terrible time though; our immune systems will encounter this variant and produce antibodies to it since it is a brand new threat. It's also important to note that the immune systems of COVID+ individuals already produced antibodies to other exterior parts of the virus. The vaccine manufacturers just determined that they should use only a select few epitopes to target, like the receptor-binding sites of the spike protein. It's possible that COVID survivors may have a little added protection against new variants compared to only-vaccinated individuals but we'll have to wait for more data.
So their scientists have quickly determined the sequence and have its 3-D conformation laid out but what does it tell us? Not much, except for in vitro binding studies and in hindsight, because the bottom line is clinical evaluation in whole people who contract this variant. My fingers are aching from all the crossing I'm doing hoping that the mild symptomatology holds true in at-risk populations as well as those in the standard risk category. As I've said earlier, wouldn't it be nice if omicron poses little harm but spreads like wildfire? It would be a kind of immunization by default, just not targeted more specifically like the vaccines. It might be helpful in the long run. It isn't likely but it isn't impossible.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/coronavirus-variant-tracker.html
Who knows? People survived smallpox outbreaks before there was a specific vaccine because infection with another similar but less harmful virus to humans (cowpox) which conferred cross-reactivity.
Several years ago (pre-COVID pandemic) I was listening to a lecture on pandemics, epidemics and the diseases involved. The lecturer said that a virus, over time, would typically mutate to become more transmissible, but less lethal because the survival of the virus depends on a large host population. If the virus is lethal enough to kill off the host population (or a large subset thereof) it will have a negative impact on the survival of the virus. I'm wondering if this might be what we are seeing, with Delta and Omicron seeming to be more contagious but not necessarily more lethal than the initial strain of the virus back in late 2019/early 2020.
I am only a layperson, so I'll leave it to the experts to expand on this, but I thought the lecturer's comment interesting in light of what we are seeing now
eta: Not meaning to say it isn't serious - I take this pandemic very seriously and am not rushing out to be in crowds or anywhere with large groups of people. I just remembered the comment as I was listening to the doctors discuss the possible scenarios for Omicron.
cody said:
Several years ago (pre-COVID pandemic) I was listening to a lecture on pandemics, epidemics and the diseases involved. The lecturer said that a virus, over time, would typically mutate to become more transmissible, but less lethal because the survival of the virus depends on a large host population. If the virus is lethal enough to kill off the host population (or a large subset thereof) it will have a negative impact on the survival of the virus. I'm wondering if this might be what we are seeing, with Delta and Omicron seeming to be more contagious but not necessarily more lethal than the initial strain of the virus back in late 2019/early 2020.
I am only a layperson, so I'll leave it to the experts to expand on this, but I thought the lecturer's comment interesting in light of what we are seeing now
we’re all just regular people talking science. That said, I joke with my wife that if this pandemic happened when I was a kid and there was internet to research, I’d have majored in a science Because like most of us, I’ve read every damn article on Covid and yes it’s scary but fascinating too. And yes, let’s hope the variant is less virulent. We should have that answer shortly.
Peter, you’re reminding me of the rheumatic fever epidemics my mum survived in Europe as a child, although her lungs and heart were badly affected for the rest of her life… We rarely hear of rheumatic fever these days, even though pneumonia is a serious but ‘normal’ infection.
(She panicked whenever we had bronchitis, tonsillitis, pharyngitis etc - anything with a fever, sore throat and a cough.)
tre
joanne said:
Peter, you’re reminding me of the rheumatic fever epidemics my mum survived in Europe as a child, although her lungs and heart were badly affected for the rest of her life… We rarely hear of rheumatic fever these days, even though pneumonia is a serious but ‘normal’ infection.
(She panicked whenever we had bronchitis, tonsillitis, pharyngitis etc - anything with a fever, sore throat and a cough.)
When was this? At the turn of the century it was a major cause of illness in death, even in young people. Before drugs like the sulfa antibiotics and penicillin, the only treatments were bed rest and aspirin or other salicylates. Group A streptococcus would spread in closely quartered populations and even caused problems for troops in WWII. Even once we had antibiotics to treat it, getting it under control - and keeping it down - was a sometimes 6-month treatment effort. It would start off as something that seems like a run-of-the-mill malady like a cold but then grow quickly. It would be especially bad if some bacteria got caught up in places that were hard to access, like close to valves in the heart. She was right to be wary still into the 60s-70s before better antibiotics than erythromycin, penicillin and ampicillin/amoxicillin came along.
Strep A is the main reason behind two things we still follow to this day, or at least try to.
1) If you're on antibiotics, finish the whole course (5, 7, 10 or however many days the doctor says). When antibiotics were first widely used, the way they could quickly make you feel better led some to stop taking it before the pills ran out. Feeling like they didn't need it anymore, or perhaps wanting to save some if they ever needed it later would lead to relapses with harsher consequences, including the eventual rise of resistant strains.
2) If you have anything that could increase your risk of clotting, you are often required to take some antibiotics before dental procedures (or other things) that could cause any temporary bleeding. Heart murmurs, plates and pins to repair fractures, or prosthetic limbs are risk factors. Normally your immune system can handle the entrance of mouth bacteria into the bloodstream but if one bacteria happens to latch onto a clot, trouble could soon develop. A bacteria attached to a clot isn't as vulnerable to antibiotic molecules free-flowing in the bloodstream. It's different from a local tissue site where the extracellular fluid isn't moving as much. If that clot gets caught up in turbulent blood flow like that around the uncoordinated valve activity with a heart murmur it can get lodged somewhere bad, like under the valve or somewhere else if it doesn't dissolve before then.
It was and continues to be much easier to stop bacterial infections provided the offending microbe is susceptible to some antibiotic(s) the patient can handle. Viruses are much harder to deal with, thankfully there are fewer of those than pathogenic bacteria.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/two-cases-omicron-variant-detected-canada-govt-says-2021-11-28/
It's in Ontario now. Tracing is going to ramp up.
The cases were reported in two people who recently travelled to Nigeria, the Ontario government said in a statement.
{thanks, Peter. Yeah, she was ill sometime in the 1930s I think - born 1927- and we didn’t know about my penicillin and salicylate issues until my late teens. 
We’re a fun family. You explain everything very clearly. }
Thread drift ends//
This is just from the past two weeks and omicron hasn't been found here yet that we know of. Please be careful folks. H/T doulamomma
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/nj-sees-back-to-back-weeks-of-20-jump-in-covid-hospitalizations/3423912/?_osource=SocialFlowFB_NYBrand&fbclid=IwAR1C6uBuPgZ_2MoljiWoU7ftIxuTItBcosixEQW3EhL4ddBFybNYo2z9G9I
Don't know where Omicron is going but I checked stats this a.m. and after that really big uptick in South Africa about a week ago, the positive test numbers have been going down there the last few days and have been fairly low. I'm not reading too much into it either way. It's just a few days downward trend but it doesn't look like they're on fire with Omicron.
Mildly annoying personal experience last night. Ate out in Brklyn with family. We decided to eat in the outside structure (thinking the heat lamps were more effective than they really were - brrrr). Anyway, our waiter was masked but a second guy who brought out some of the plates was not. The guy repeatedly comes to our table and leans over it to put plates down. Why no mask? I don't want to make too much of it - we were semi-outdoors with a breeze, all triple vaxxed, the guy was seemingly healthy but I don't want an unmasked stranger leaning over me.
Sigh. Will be traveling to the midwest for Christmas; one of the sibling family's is unvaxxed. So I said that I expect that when we're inside in a mixed-vaccination status group everyone will wear masks. Getting some pushback on this and hoping it doesn't become big drama. Masks are already the compromise here.
PVW said:
Sigh. Will be traveling to the midwest for Christmas; one of the sibling family's is unvaxxed. So I said that I expect that when we're inside in a mixed-vaccination status group everyone will wear masks. Getting some pushback on this and hoping it doesn't become big drama. Masks are already the compromise here.
I would opt out of going. You can’t force anyone to wear a mask.
Jaytee said:
I would opt out of going. You can’t force anyone to wear a mask.
Well, they're not hosting, so technically the host (who is vaccinated and takes covid seriously) could just tell them they can't come -- the host shouldn't have to forgo everyone else visiting. But that leads to the kind of drama that could largely be avoided if those not vaccinated would show some flexibility.
PVW said:
Jaytee said:
I would opt out of going. You can’t force anyone to wear a mask.
Well, they're not hosting, so technically the host (who is vaccinated and takes covid seriously) could just tell them they can't come -- the host shouldn't have to forgo everyone else visiting. But that leads to the kind of drama that could largely be avoided if those not vaccinated would show some flexibility.
I've got a similar issue. Going out to Ohio to see my brother. Everyone is vaxxed, except for his son.
I think we'll just grin and bear it and hope for the best.
PVW said:
Well, they're not hosting, so technically the host (who is vaccinated and takes covid seriously) could just tell them they can't come -- the host shouldn't have to forgo everyone else visiting. But that leads to the kind of drama that could largely be avoided if those not vaccinated would show some flexibility.
yes I can relate to the drama. I think it’s the host responsibility in this case.
But if it ruins everyone’s holidays then I would be very vocal about it, and probably won’t go back to any gathering if said person will be present. It’s just very rude on their part. Selfish and rude, not to mention obnoxious.
One person, I'd probably just roll the dice too, but this would be six people, all living their lives in a place where no one masks or does much of anything to reduce the spread. What's hard is that they have such a radically different understanding of how contagion or any of this works that it's a hard gap to bridge, maybe impossible. I've asked them to just consider us as the weird ones with strange beliefs who aren't asking them to convert to our POV, just wear a bit of cloth as a compromise. If they can't, then I guess I'll be canceling some flights.
If you do decide to go, consider bringing a package or two of face coverings with you to distribute to any guests who may not be in possession of a face covering. Consider it a potentially life saving holiday gift.
joan_crystal said:
If you do decide to go, consider bringing a package or two of face coverings with you to distribute to any guests who may not be in possession of a face covering. Consider it a potentially life saving holiday gift.
that’s an obnoxious thing to do that will only cause a fight. The best thing to do is not to go if the unvaccinated concerns them.
PVW said:
One person, I'd probably just roll the dice too, but this would be six people, all living their lives in a place where no one masks or does much of anything to reduce the spread. What's hard is that they have such a radically different understanding of how contagion or any of this works that it's a hard gap to bridge, maybe impossible. I've asked them to just consider us as the weird ones with strange beliefs who aren't asking them to convert to our POV, just wear a bit of cloth as a compromise. If they can't, then I guess I'll be canceling some flights.
we were at a Thanksgiving gathering in the DC area, in which every one of the roughly two dozen people there had been fully vaccinated (some of us three times). And because one person is quite elderly, we were also asked to take a COVID test ahead of time, or when we arrived at the house. So everyone in attendance was vaccinated AND tested negative. At one point one of the people there (a doctor) was saying how great it was that we could all be together and because we were vaxxed and tested negative we could enjoy the day without stress. Then he surmised that around the country there were other people at dinner saying the exact opposite -- how awesome that they were free to not vax, and they weren't going to be tested, and they were going maskless (apparently Lauren Boebert's home was one).
We live in two completely different realities in this country, and you're right, the gap is possibly insurmountable. And the sad thing is that thousands of people over the next couple of weeks will probably die as a result of celebrating their "freedom" together at Thanksgiving.
For Sale
Garage Sales
-
HUGE Rummage sale to benefit the Bloomfield High School Robotics Team Sale Date: Apr 27, 2024
More info
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/south-african-doctor-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/