Covid Variants

[Suranis]

Again, what we are seeing is infections that happened last week. Shutting down travel NOW is pretty useless.

[RTH10260]

Again, what we are seeing is infections that happened last week. Shutting down travel NOW is pretty useless.

IMHO not useless, it still stops many infected travellers from crossing borders. Of course we now learn that the S.African scientists were already late in discovering another new variant, but still way ahead of the rest of the world that did not recognize the mutant. Travel restriction can be lifted once countries have a better grip of the issue.

[MsDaisy]

We had flights booked on Virgin to go to London for Christmas and suddenly with no notice or explanation Virgin has canceled our flight.

MrD is pissed, we were supposed to go last year but that didn't happen.

[AndyinPA]

I'm sorry.

From my Facebook travels feeds, people are getting screwed over royally by the airlines and travel companies. It's not all their fault, but it's no less exasperating and frustrating. Some have had trips canceled less than 24 hours before their flights. If they were planning to go early, they are really screwed. Also, some countries are not allowing other European countries to fly in or are requiring 3-14 day quarantines. That essentially means no trip.

I had a trip to Portugal and Spain that I canceled last month. The tour company is only allowing me a year from October 4 to use it. It was a long, expensive trip. I am going to see if they have any trips in this country because I just do NOt trust the airlines, or the virus. It's going to be a long time that we're going to be dealing with this. We haven't seen the last of the variants.

I got another confidential survey from a cruise line last night. I really think they are trying to do the best they can, but Covid plays by its own rules.

[MsDaisy]

I'm a bit worried about traveling too even though we've both had 3 shots each of the Moderna vaccine, the first two last spring and the 3rd one two weeks ago. But I guess there's no real guarantee that we won't get sick anyway. My son is vaccinated and he's really sick with covid right now and having a terrible time just trying to breathe, poor baby. His wife is also vaccinated and she's sick with it too though not quite as bad as he is. Thankfully the grandkids who are not vaccinated are not sick at all, so it's a real crap shoot. I think I'd probably worry more about getting stuck somewhere we couldn't get home from with all these travel disruptions. That would be a real pisser.

[AndyinPA]

Oh, I'm so sorry about the family. I hope they are soon better.

[Volkonski]

[Sam the Centipede]

I'm a bit worried about traveling too even though we've both had 3 shots each of the Moderna vaccine, the first two last spring and the 3rd one two weeks ago. But I guess there's no real guarantee that we won't get sick anyway.

That's definitely the analysis I hear from several countries: being vaccinated protects you against severe Covid, really reducing the risk of finding yourself in an ICU or a wooden box, but protection against infection and milder (they might not feel mild!) symptoms is much lower than was thought when the vaccines are first deployed.

One small silver lining: if you pick up an infection, your body will further strengthen and diversify its immune response, and target the relevant parts of the body better.

[MsDaisy]

One small silver lining: if you pick up an infection, your body will further strengthen and diversify its immune response, and target the relevant parts of the body better.

[RTH10260]

I'm a bit worried about traveling too even though we've both had 3 shots each of the Moderna vaccine, the first two last spring and the 3rd one two weeks ago. But I guess there's no real guarantee that we won't get sick anyway.

That's definitely the analysis I hear from several countries: being vaccinated protects you against severe Covid, really reducing the risk of finding yourself in an ICU or a wooden box, but protection against infection and milder (they might not feel mild!) symptoms is much lower than was thought when the vaccines are first deployed.

One small silver lining: if you pick up an infection, your body will further strengthen and diversify its immune response, and target the relevant parts of the body better.

I think everyone is ignoring the facts presented at emergency and final approval: no one ever promised 100% protection, it was always maintained that vaccines were effective in the 95+% range, depending on product.

[Sam the Centipede]

I think everyone is ignoring the facts presented at emergency and final approval: no one ever promised 100% protection, it was always maintained that vaccines were effective in the 95+% range, depending on product.

Not sure who "everyone" is but …

95% sounds good, is good, but I suspect many folk didn't pick up the nuance of 95% effective … against what? Fantastic! We have good stuff! Yay science! The aim was always to avert hospitalization and death, and WHO said early on that they'd consider 50% (or was it 40%? – it was a long time ago!) good enough for deploying a vaccine, so 90%+ was brilliant.

The vaccines still appear that effective: vaccinated people get infected, vaccinated people get sick, but vaccinated people generally don't get into a hospital bed or onto a mortuary tray.

I think we have just moved back a few decades in how we must see illness: this is a disease that probably won't be a huge problem for oneself, but it could be, and you can try to avoid it but ultimately it's either a matter of chance or your preferred god's will, like measles, polio, etc.

[RTH10260]

Quote from a NYT newsletter

The highly mutated variant of the virus has reached almost 50 countries and has been detected in 17 American states. Scientists in South Africa said Omicron appeared to spread more than twice as quickly as Delta, thanks to a combination of contagiousness and an ability to dodge the body’s immune defenses. Here’s what we know so far.

The precise origins of the variant remain unknown. Some of the first cases to be detected in Botswana — among the first known in the world — were in foreign diplomats who had traveled to the country from Europe, the country’s president said. Infections at a New York anime convention suggest that it may have been spreading in the U.S. before it had a name.

[AndyinPA]

The thing that drives me crazy is that 40 percent would be pretty good IF more people were getting vaccinated. My memory says it was 85-95 percent from Moderna and Pfizer, lower with J&J, but still considered good by normal vaccine standards.

[Volkonski]

Looks like Delta will soon disappear.

[Azastan]

I had a trip to Portugal and Spain that I canceled last month. The tour company is only allowing me a year from October 4 to use it. It was a long, expensive trip. I am going to see if they have any trips in this country because I just do NOt trust the airlines, or the virus. It's going to be a long time that we're going to be dealing with this. We haven't seen the last of the variants.

I was supposed to go to Scotland in May, and canceled several weeks ago after looking at Brexit issues and the delta variant. I'm glad I did.

[Volkonski]

Omicron’s Spread Across Hotel Hall Highlights Transmission Worry

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... sion-worry

The omicron variant spread among two fully vaccinated travelers across the hallway of a Hong Kong quarantine hotel, underscoring why the highly mutated coronavirus strain is unnerving health authorities.

Closed-circuit television camera footage showed neither person left their room nor had any contact, leaving airborne transmission when respective doors were opened for food collection or Covid testing the most probable mode of spread, researchers at the University of Hong Kong said in a study published Friday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Omicron, with an “unprecedented” number of mutations in the spike protein, has raised concern that it could evade vaccine-induced protection, worsen a surge in Covid cases and frustrate efforts to reopen economies. Some 450 researchers around the world have begun urgent studies to understand the extent to which omicron’s mutations may affect vaccine effectiveness and increase its transmissibility in a global effort that may yield answers in a few days, a World Health Organization scientist said last week.

“Detection of Omicron variant transmission between two fully vaccinated persons across the corridor of a quarantine hotel has highlighted this potential concern,” Haogao Gu, Leo Poon and colleagues wrote in the study.

[RTH10260]

I had a trip to Portugal and Spain that I canceled last month. The tour company is only allowing me a year from October 4 to use it. It was a long, expensive trip. I am going to see if they have any trips in this country because I just do NOt trust the airlines, or the virus. It's going to be a long time that we're going to be dealing with this. We haven't seen the last of the variants.

I was supposed to go to Scotland in May, and canceled several weeks ago after looking at Brexit issues and the delta variant. I'm glad I did.

By May we will be looking at how to handle the Pi variant.

[AndyinPA]

I had a trip to Portugal and Spain that I canceled last month. The tour company is only allowing me a year from October 4 to use it. It was a long, expensive trip. I am going to see if they have any trips in this country because I just do NOt trust the airlines, or the virus. It's going to be a long time that we're going to be dealing with this. We haven't seen the last of the variants.

I was supposed to go to Scotland in May, and canceled several weeks ago after looking at Brexit issues and the delta variant. I'm glad I did.

By May we will be looking at how to handle the Pi variant.

No. No. No. As someone said on the joke thread, we will be having Pi for Christmas.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

I was supposed to go to Scotland in May, and canceled several weeks ago after looking at Brexit issues and the delta variant. I'm glad I did.

By May we will be looking at how to handle the Pi variant.

No. No. No. As someone said on the joke thread, we will be having Pi for Christmas.

[Lani]

Omicron is spreading here. It started on December 2nd with one vaccinated man who didn't travel, always wore a mask, didn't go to any gatherings.

Four days later, there were 8 other suspected cases because of the NYC anime convention. It was the CDC that notified DOH of the Hawaii residents on the convention attendee list. DOH is urging residents who have been in contact with someone who went to the convention to be tested.

And of course, a church! A member tested positive, but the church wasn't cooperating. So DOH released the name of the church and said everyone who went there since Nov. 23 should get tested.

Also, two more mask wearing, vaccinated, careful people who have no idea how they got it.

We don't know how many people have it. Only a few are tested for that variant & it can take days to get the results. It's definitely here and spreading quickly.

[RTH10260]

Omicron Is Fast Moving, but Perhaps Less Severe, Early Reports Suggest
Researchers in South Africa, where the variant is spreading quickly, say it may cause less serious Covid cases than other forms of the virus, but it is unclear whether that will hold true.

By Lynsey Chutel, Richard Pérez-Peña and Emily Anthes
Dec. 6, 2021

JOHANNESBURG — The Covid-19 virus is spreading faster than ever in South Africa, the country’s president said Monday, an indication of how the new Omicron variant is driving the pandemic, but there are early indications that Omicron may cause less serious illness than other forms of the virus.

Researchers at a major hospital complex in Pretoria reported that their patients with the coronavirus are much less sick than those they have treated before, and that other hospitals are seeing the same trends. In fact, they said, most of their infected patients were admitted for other reasons and have no Covid symptoms.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/worl ... pread.html

[AndyinPA]

While Omicron is in the state in the Philadelphia area, locally it's the Delta variant that's still most prevalent.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... f=nXmOg68r

Australia’s Queensland state has found a new omicron lineage in a traveler who arrived from South Africa, health authorities said Wednesday.

The new lineage has about half the gene variations of the original and can’t be detected with typical screening, the state’s acting chief health officer Peter Aitken told reporters. It was found in a traveler who had arrived from South Africa and tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday, he said.

The new lineage has enough markers “to be able to classify it as omicron, but we don’t know enough about it as to what that means then as far as clinical severity, vaccine effectiveness,” Aitken said. “We now have omicron and omicron-like.”

The discovery comes as Queensland prepares to finally reopen its border to the rest of Australia ahead of schedule next Monday, as more than 80% of the eligible population will be fully vaccinated later this week.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... tudy-finds

Three shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are likely to provide effective protection against the Omicron variant, laboratory tests suggest.

The vaccine makers said they were keeping the option of an updated Omicron-based vaccine on the table, however, and could produce it by March 2022 if needed.

In the first official statement from vaccine manufacturers on the likely efficacy of their shot against Omicron, BioNTech/Pfizer said that two vaccine doses resulted in significantly lower neutralising antibodies but that a third dose of their vaccine appeared to bring antibody protection up to a level equivalent to two vaccine doses against the original strain.

The findings are broadly in line with a preliminary study published by researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa on Tuesday, showing that Omicron can partially evade protection from two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Cross-posted in Vaccine thread.

[Volkonski]