COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Matty]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

[Frodo]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1468985459963535360

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

It’s a valid point in general.  But reinfections alone can’t explain why there are basically ZERO cases of severe illness from Omicron. 

I don’t understand why people seem so invested in continuing to rationalize unfounded fears of this variant despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

It’s a valid point in general.  But reinfections alone can’t explain why there are basically ZERO cases of severe illness from Omicron. 

I don’t understand why people seem so invested in continuing to rationalize unfounded fears of this variant despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

There is no overwhelming evidence. I mean, we already know that covid is less dangerous then flu for the vaccinated (or infected probably). Given that ~80% has already been infected.

There is no "zero" severe cases, either. What did you get if from? From the twitter thread I linked to.

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988200882524166

I don't know the definition of "severe" is, but no one, I personally know, who got Covid needed to be hospitalized. Doesn't being hospitalized counts as severe?

Given that ~80% of people has been infected = immunity, very young population and the fact that a lot of vulnerable population has died (0.3% of total population has died in SA due to corona). The thing is, that the "data" would perhaps be the same, if it was delta.

+ lagging. Obviously, if no one dies in 1-2 week in SA, it'd really great news.And soon we'll start to get good data from UK. They have vaccinations (and previous infected?) status for each patient. Then we can actually make apple to apple comparison vs delta etc.

[compucomp]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

It’s a valid point in general.  But reinfections alone can’t explain why there are basically ZERO cases of severe illness from Omicron. 

I don’t understand why people seem so invested in continuing to rationalize unfounded fears of this variant despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It's not overwhelming evidence. It's preliminary evidence. In election parlance, it's too early to call. Early evidence also indicates that the variant is even more contagious than Delta, which can make it dangerous even if it turns out to be more mild.

If you want to believe in the preliminary data showing Omicron is mild, that's fine, but disparaging reasonable concerns and views in the other direction is unwise and can leave you looking foolish quickly. Just this year many people underestimated Delta badly.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

And nobody has died of Omicron is a very misleading statement.

The true statement should be that nobody whose blood sample got sequenced had died so far by Omicron. South Africa is able to sequence less than 5000 samples. A month.

By the death has already doubled since middle of November (remember, there is true lagging + reporting lagging). From 10-15 a day to ~20-30 a day.




Might be noise, though.

[It’s so Joever]

For gosh sakes, Russian Bear is literally always trying to fight against things. First the troll clashes against me all throughout 2020 by suggesting the virus isn’t so bad, and now reverse? Just ignore the fool.

[GeorgiaModerate]

For gosh sakes, Russian Bear is literally always trying to fight against things. First the troll clashes against me all throughout 2020 by suggesting the virus isn’t so bad, and now reverse? Just ignore the fool.

I did so a long time ago, and it's made this thread (among others) a lot easier to read.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

ing NUT!!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1469014009907138561

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

It’s a valid point in general.  But reinfections alone can’t explain why there are basically ZERO cases of severe illness from Omicron. 

I don’t understand why people seem so invested in continuing to rationalize unfounded fears of this variant despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

There is no overwhelming evidence. I mean, we already know that covid is less dangerous then flu for the vaccinated (or infected probably). Given that ~80% has already been infected.

There is no "zero" severe cases, either. What did you get if from? From the twitter thread I linked to.

https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988200882524166

I don't know the definition of "severe" is, but no one, I personally know, who got Covid needed to be hospitalized. Doesn't being hospitalized counts as severe?

Given that ~80% of people has been infected = immunity, very young population and the fact that a lot of vulnerable population has died (0.3% of total population has died in SA due to corona). The thing is, that the "data" would perhaps be the same, if it was delta.

+ lagging. Obviously, if no one dies in 1-2 week in SA, it'd really great news.And soon we'll start to get good data from UK. They have vaccinations (and previous infected?) status for each patient. Then we can actually make apple to apple comparison vs delta etc.

I posted a link 2-3 days ago explaining why South Africa has seen an increase in hospitalization but no evidence of an increase in severe illness.  The gist of it was that South Africa has been admitting every child diagnosed with covid into the hospital for observation whether or not they had any serious symptoms.

[emailking]

It's correct though that we don't know if Omicron has caused any deaths because you can't tell that from just a test. In fact, it seems unlikely it hasn't caused any deaths. That said, the evidence does seem to suggest it's milder than other variants.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

You can be pretty damn certain that Omicron is much less severe than other variants just from the 0-deaths-in-1780 cases data point.

You can plug this data in to a binomial calculator to find the threshold at which the you reach a 95% confidence level for a given death rate.  With these numbers, 95% confidence is reached at a death rate of 0.17%.  In other words, if the null hypothesis was that the death rate for Omicron was 0.17% (about 1 in 600) or greater, you could reject this null hypothesis at 95% confidence.  

(Of course, given that we have no deaths, it is more likely than not the the actual death rate is even less than 0.17%, we just don’t have a big enough denominator to say this at 95% confidence.  For example, we only have 83% confidence to reject a null hypothesis death rate of 0.1%.)

[Hammy]

And nobody has died of Omicron is a very misleading statement.

The true statement should be that nobody whose blood sample got sequenced had died so far by Omicron. South Africa is able to sequence less than 5000 samples. A month.

The statement a few posts up didn't say there were no deaths, it stated none were reported up to that point that were linked to omicron, i.e. none were confirmed among those sequenced.

[compucomp]

You can be pretty damn certain that Omicron is much less severe than other variants just from the 0-deaths-in-1780 cases data point.

You can plug this data in to a binomial calculator to find the threshold at which the you reach a 95% confidence level for a given death rate.  With these numbers, 95% confidence is reached at a death rate of 0.17%.  In other words, if the null hypothesis was that the death rate for Omicron was 0.17% (about 1 in 600) or greater, you could reject this null hypothesis at 95% confidence.  

(Of course, given that we have no deaths, it is more likely than not the the actual death rate is even less than 0.17%, we just don’t have a big enough denominator to say this at 95% confidence.  For example, we only have 83% confidence to reject a null hypothesis death rate of 0.1%.)

The potential issue with this analysis is that so far the cases have been diagnosed in South Africa, whose population does not resemble the US in terms of age, and in travelers, who tend to skew younger and healthier. It has not hit the general population substantially in a Western country yet. Yes, I agree the early data is favorable but I think we need to see what happens in the UK or Europe before drawing a conclusion. As an analogy, when the first 200K votes came in last November in Kentucky, Biden was ahead of Trump, but that was from a batch of absentee ballots and not representative of the rest.

[Frodo]

I just got my booster shot which they said should provide plenty of protection against the Omicron variant, and already they are talking about moving up a possible fourth dose:

Omicron may require fourth vaccine dose sooner than expected, Pfizer says

We are going to be getting these new vaccines every six months or so, aren't we?  Instead of late next year like they originally anticipated, we could be looking at getting that fourth dose around late spring into early summer next year. 

[emailking]

We are going to be getting these new vaccines every six months or so, aren't we?  Instead of late next year like they originally anticipated, we could be looking at getting that fourth dose around late spring into early summer next year. 

That would be my guess but we'll see. I'm good with the doses if it means we can keep everything open. Hopefully the side effects will get better over time because my shots all sucked, a lot. Whereas the flu shot I recently had was almost nothing as far as side effects.

[Pericles]

We are going to be getting these new vaccines every six months or so, aren't we?  Instead of late next year like they originally anticipated, we could be looking at getting that fourth dose around late spring into early summer next year. 

That would be my guess but we'll see. I'm good with the doses if it means we can keep everything open. Hopefully the side effects will get better over time because my shots all sucked, a lot. Whereas the flu shot I recently had was almost nothing as far as side effects.

The booster was supposed to last for several years. I'm worried by the Omicron variant though, even if the booster gets vaccination back to its two dose effectiveness against the original variant, that doesn't assure me that a fourth vaccine won't be required in the next year.

[roxas11]

I'm actually surprised that there is a debate on here about the severity of Omicron when even the CDC Director recently said this

https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1468945537244274688

by comparsion it did not take very long at all to know that Delta was a very deadly variant nor did the CDC Director at the time ever claim that it was mild

even early on almost nobody was taking that way about Delta....

[ꙮ]

Some people really have lost their damn minds. 0 deaths in over 1700 cases constrains the mortality heavily even if its jUsT EaRlY DaTa, and indicates that the true value is far under 1%. The Omicron variant barely seems more dangerous than any other circulating coronavirus (i.e. the common cold). Yes, I know the other variants still exist, but anyone sh**tting themselves over Omicron at this point needs to take a hard look at the actual data.

[Hammy]

Some people really have lost their damn minds. 0 deaths in over 1700 cases constrains the mortality heavily even if its jUsT EaRlY DaTa, and indicates that the true value is far under 1%. The Omicron variant barely seems more dangerous than any other circulating coronavirus (i.e. the common cold). Yes, I know the other variants still exist, but anyone sh**tting themselves over Omicron at this point needs to take a hard look at the actual data.

I'm generally of the 'wait and see' mindset but it really shows how badly people have lost their minds when I of all people am remaining calm and checking the numbers daily the same as I'd check weather updates.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

You can be pretty damn certain that Omicron is much less severe than other variants just from the 0-deaths-in-1780 cases data point.

You can plug this data in to a binomial calculator to find the threshold at which the you reach a 95% confidence level for a given death rate.  With these numbers, 95% confidence is reached at a death rate of 0.17%.  In other words, if the null hypothesis was that the death rate for Omicron was 0.17% (about 1 in 600) or greater, you could reject this null hypothesis at 95% confidence.  

(Of course, given that we have no deaths, it is more likely than not the the actual death rate is even less than 0.17%, we just don’t have a big enough denominator to say this at 95% confidence.  For example, we only have 83% confidence to reject a null hypothesis death rate of 0.1%.)

I repeat, the age distribution is the key here. Even among unvaccinated, the death rate among people younger 50 years is way under 0.1%. Given that ~80% of South Africa has been previously infected, so you can divide fatality by factor of 10 of something. I don't find any data re:age distribution, but I remember, that initial outbreak was among youngs.


It's not just me.
Scott Gottlieb says it's too early, because according to him more then 90% has been infected earlier by delta.
https://twitter.com/saletan/status/1467607386038980611

Here is Eric Topol
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/is-omicron-ominous

2.   Does Omicron cause more mild or severe illness than Delta?

Early reports from South Africa indicated the possibility that cases were more mild, requiring less hospitalizations and oxygen supplementation. But the population assessed was predominantly young, had prior Covid, or were vaccinated. We can hope this is the case but will not really know the answer to this question until much larger numbers of people aged 60 plus, those without prior infection, or vaccination, or several months out from vaccination, are studied. Fortunately, there are no data to suggest Omicron is associated with more lethality or severe Covid than prior variants.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

The potential issue with this analysis is that so far the cases have been diagnosed in South Africa, whose population does not resemble the US in terms of age, and in travelers, who tend to skew younger and healthier. It has not hit the general population substantially in a Western country yet. Yes, I agree the early data is favorable but I think we need to see what happens in the UK or Europe before drawing a conclusion. As an analogy, when the first 200K votes came in last November in Kentucky, Biden was ahead of Trump, but that was from a batch of absentee ballots and not representative of the rest.

This secular blogg is notoriously good at "analyzing" early data and dismissing real experts 

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1469299391974367232

Yep. Exactly, what I have been saying. If you have immunity - due to vaccination or infection - you're fine - you're as safe if not safer as against flu, but we already knew it. So why might Omicron still be a game-changer? Well, perhaps, the herd immunity is out of equation. If so, the unvaccinated elder/fatso who was earlier shielded by herd immunity are no longer safe, because Omicron is more immunity evasive than Delta (possibly by a lot??). Given that US is relatively low vax, might be bad.

[ProudModerate2]

Covid-19 patients at this hospital are dying 'at a rate we've never seen die before' -- and it's taking a toll on health care workers.

Nurse Katie Sefton never thought Covid-19 could get this bad -- and certainly not this late in the pandemic.
"I was really hoping that we'd (all) get vaccinated and things would be back to normal," said Sefton, an assistant manager at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan.

But this week Michigan had more patients hospitalized for Covid-19 than ever before. Covid-19 hospitalizations jumped 88% in the past month, according to the Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

"We have more patients than we've ever had at any point, and we're seeing more people die at a rate we've never seen die before," said Jim Dover, president and CEO of Sparrow Health System.
"Since January, we've had about 289 deaths; 75% are unvaccinated people," Dover said. "And the very few (vaccinated people) who passed away all were more than 6 months out from their shot. So we've not had a single person who has had a booster shot die from Covid."

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/09/us/hospital-covid-19-deaths-michigan/index.html

The vast majority of the problem for this hospital, are people who are still completely unvaccinated.
What the hell is wrong with people who still don't have at least one shot yet? Are they living under a rock?

[Tekken_Guy]

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1469299391974367232

Yep. Exactly, what I have been saying. If you have immunity - due to vaccination or infection - you're fine - you're as safe if not safer as against flu, but we already knew it. So why might Omicron still be a game-changer? Well, perhaps, the herd immunity is out of equation. If so, the unvaccinated elder/fatso who was earlier shielded by herd immunity are no longer safe, because Omicron is more immunity evasive than Delta (possibly by a lot??). Given that US is relatively low vax, might be bad.

Well there's no evidence Omicron poses the same risk to the vaccinated as it is to the unvaccinated. Partial immunity is still better than zero immunity. We should just continue promoting masks and vaccines and this will be no less manageable than delta.