Coronavirus Outbreak

[Dan Z]

Ken - you find the best stuff. This is a very helpful graphic..

But Ken and Dan, the conclusion is that this chart is no longer helpful with Omicron, correct?

I suspect the data are still helpful in presenting a general idea of relative masking type effectiveness. While Omicron is certainly more transmissible, it is still a COVID virus of similar size and shape to previous variants. It is also still transmitted the same way - just more efficiently.

[GaryK]

Who would have thought that a men's prescription (Viagra) could help save the life of a woman with Covid?

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2021/12/lin ... ovid-coma/

[Josh]

Who would have thought that a men's prescription (Viagra) could help save the life of a woman with Covid?

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2021/12/lin ... ovid-coma/

A double-jabbed 37-year-old woman put in a coma after catching COVID wants to thank staff at Lincoln County Hospital for saving her life, and is urging everyone to make sure they get vaccinated.

What's even more confusing is that she is fully vaccinated, yet got COVID, and in turn is urging everyone else to get vaccinated. What's the point?

[RZehr]

Who would have thought that a men's prescription (Viagra) could help save the life of a woman with Covid?

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2021/12/lin ... ovid-coma/

A double-jabbed 37-year-old woman put in a coma after catching COVID wants to thank staff at Lincoln County Hospital for saving her life, and is urging everyone to make sure they get vaccinated.

What's even more confusing is that she is fully vaccinated, yet got COVID, and in turn is urging everyone else to get vaccinated. What's the point?

Why? Just follow the money. She's clearly a shill/investor in Pfizer and wants people to buy their vaccine and their viagra.

[Robert]

I suspect the data are still helpful in presenting a general idea of relative masking type effectiveness. While Omicron is certainly more transmissible, it is still a COVID virus of similar size and shape to previous variants. It is also still transmitted the same way - just more efficiently.

I would question the data in that chart. The numbers are much too even and rounded. This makes me think it s speculation, not research.

100% to 75% to 50% to 20%. That seldom happens in the real world.

[Valerie]

I suspect the data are still helpful in presenting a general idea of relative masking type effectiveness. While Omicron is certainly more transmissible, it is still a COVID virus of similar size and shape to previous variants. It is also still transmitted the same way - just more efficiently.

I would question the data in that chart. The numbers are much too even and rounded. This makes me think it s speculation, not research.

100% to 75% to 50% to 20%. That seldom happens in the real world.

And speaking of #s, i learned today that only those who received the booster are counted as vaccinated. So when hospitals are reporting vaccinated versus unvaccinated unless you received the booster, if your hospitalized if you only got the first two jabs, & no booster, then you're considered unvaccinated in the number count.

[Ken]

Here is an extremely detailed and interesting twitter thread on Omicron by John Burn-Murdoch who is a statistician for the Financial Times. You have to click through to read the whole analysis

[Valerie]

Is there no end?

https://www.dw.com/en/new-coronavirus-v ... a-60329823

[Dan Z]

Here is an extremely detailed and interesting twitter thread on Omicron by John Burn-Murdoch who is a statistician for the Financial Times. You have to click through to read the whole analysis

Interesting - thanks again Ken.

There is finally enough data on Omicron to extrapolate some solid trajectory info. Again, bottom line, Omicron is far more transmissible and far less lethal. It will likely burden many of our healthcare systems by sheer volume, but severe illnesses and deaths will likely not be as bad as past waves. Like some are predicting, I'm hoping that the next month or so of surge will result in a sort of "flame out," where the virus uses up much of the remaining "oxygen" and settles down to low, flu-like endemic levels.

Unbelievably, by March we may be close to a million total COVID-related deaths in the US in just a two-year period. Putting that into perspective, a "bad" flu year (like 2017-18 or 2014-15) is a year with 50,000 deaths. The worst flu season in the past 50 years had about 67,000 deaths.

[mike]

Here is an extremely detailed and interesting twitter thread on Omicron by John Burn-Murdoch who is a statistician for the Financial Times. You have to click through to read the whole analysis

This fits with what we have been told from the time Omicron was noted in South Africa. And yet, this did not stop governments from reacting strongly by doing such things as banning air travel to/from South Africa.