The Coronavirus Thread

[JimC]

Yep, it could be a very important additional tool...

[rainbow]

Another typical report that is so vague you just cant believe it:

Israel on Tuesday recorded its first death from the Omicron coronavirus variant, according to Israeli news media which on Tuesday reported that a man in his seventies with pre-existing conditions died in Beersheva on Monday after having received two vaccination doses, Reuters reports.

What killed him? His pre-existing conditions or Covid? A Covid death quite amazing. Would the man have died from his pre-existing conditions? The question never asked.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... ant-strain

When in denial, be careful of the crocodiles.

[Brian Peacock]

Visualisation showing how the Covid vaccine rollout has progressed globally.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-in ... -19-divide

[Scot Dutchy]

Who is in denial as all I am doing is just asking and getting no answers.

[Scot Dutchy]

Once again the dictators are skimpy on the truth.

Data appears to support claims that Omicron is less severe in South Africa

Scientists warn, however, that lower severity of cases is not fully understood and may not occur elsewhere

South Africa has reported data on Covid cases driven by the Omicron variant that appears to give added impetus to claims the country is experiencing a lower severity of disease.

“In South Africa, this is the epidemiology: Omicron is behaving in a way that is less severe,” said Prof Cheryl Cohen of the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), one of the authors of the study.

“Compellingly, together our data really suggest a positive story of a reduced severity of Omicron compared to other variants,” she said during a news conference by a group of NICD scientists on Wednesday.

Scientists, however, cautioned that the reasons less severe cases were being seen was not fully understood and that South Africa’s experience – with a young population – might not translate into how other countries experience Omicron.

In South Africa the median age is 27.6 years in comparison with the UK where it is 40.5 years and Italy – hard hit by the first wave of the pandemic – where it is 47.3.


Marta Nunes, a senior researcher at the vaccines and infectious diseases analytics department of the University of Witwatersrand, told the Associated Press: “The drop in new cases nationally combined with the sustained drop in new cases seen here in Gauteng province, which for weeks has been the centre of this wave, indicates that we are past the peak.”

“It was a short wave … and the good news is that it was not very severe in terms of hospitalisations and deaths,” she said. It was “not unexpected in epidemiology that a very steep increase, like what we saw in November, is followed by a steep decrease”.

And we are more vaccinated as well.

[Tero]

Omicron closer to cold and flu symptoms:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decisions on vaccines, said there appear to be prominent symptoms from omicron:

Cough
Fatigue or tiredness
Congestion and runny nose
Unlike in previous variants, the loss of taste and smell seems to be uncommon, she said.

But Poehling and other experts say those symptoms are based on early reports of omicron cases, not scientific studies.

There is also emerging evidence that omicron tends not to burrow deep into the lungs as much as previous variants. A study, which was posted online by the University of Hong Kong and not yet peer-reviewed, found that while omicron is less severe in the lungs, it can replicate faster higher up in the respiratory tract.

In this way, omicron may act more like bronchitis than pneumonia, said Dr. Hugh Cassiere, director of critical care services for Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at the North Shore University Hospital, on Long Island, New York.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... m=news_tab

[Joe]

Yeah, but will I get 5G?

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say

Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that is effective against COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide.

The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.

Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One. The new vaccine will still need to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 trials.

Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.

[Tero]

It will need a licensing deal. Pfizer? Merck?

[pErvinalia]

Big government FTW!

[Scot Dutchy]

This is what the dictators dont want you to hear:

Risk of hospital stay 40% lower with Omicron than Delta, UK data suggests

Researchers find those who test positive with new Covid variant up to 25% less likely to attend hospital at all

The Omicron variant of coronavirus appears to be milder, with a 20%-25% reduced chance of a hospital visit and at least a 40% lower risk of being admitted overnight, the first UK data of its kind has showed.

But as daily Covid cases topped 100,000 for the first time on Wednesday, experts warned that high transmissibility means the NHS is still at risk of being overwhelmed.

In what was described by scientists as a “qualified good news story”, two studies on Wednesday pointed to a lower risk of hospitalisation with Omicron.

An Imperial College outbreak modelling team led by Prof Neil Ferguson analysed hospitalisations and vaccine records among all PCR-confirmed Covid cases in England between 1 and 14 December. The dataset included 56,000 cases of Omicron and 269,000 cases of Delta.

[Tero]

"It's just a flu. A liberal conspiracy to make Trump lose the election."

A man in line for our first shot in spring told me it was just the flu. But he was in line for this fancy vaccine cause he had already paid for it in taxes.

[Tero]

Story implies that people who do not have pay for sick days will not bother to get tested, but just take a few days without pay and teturn to work:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/22/health/i ... index.html

[Hermit]

This is what the dictators dont want you to hear:

Risk of hospital stay 40% lower with Omicron than Delta, UK data suggests

Researchers find those who test positive with new Covid variant up to 25% less likely to attend hospital at all

The Omicron variant of coronavirus appears to be milder, with a 20%-25% reduced chance of a hospital visit and at least a 40% lower risk of being admitted overnight, the first UK data of its kind has showed.

But as daily Covid cases topped 100,000 for the first time on Wednesday, experts warned that high transmissibility means the NHS is still at risk of being overwhelmed.

In what was described by scientists as a “qualified good news story”, two studies on Wednesday pointed to a lower risk of hospitalisation with Omicron.

An Imperial College outbreak modelling team led by Prof Neil Ferguson analysed hospitalisations and vaccine records among all PCR-confirmed Covid cases in England between 1 and 14 December. The dataset included 56,000 cases of Omicron and 269,000 cases of Delta.

What the Dutch "dictators" actually say:

The OMT emphasises that various essential properties of the Omicron variant, such as its potential to cause illness (virulence), are not yet clear. However, the risk is currently too high to wait any longer to implement measures, since the variant is spreading very rapidly. If it becomes apparent that Omicron infections are much milder, then the OMT will quickly recommend relaxing the lockdown again.

https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/omicron-adv ... etherlands

[Scot Dutchy]

Old stories in English.

[Hermit]

Old stories in English.

Four days old, and in English, you say?