Fogbow

Suranis wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 8:40 am Again, what we are seeing is infections that happened last week. Shutting down travel NOW is pretty useless.

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:02 pm 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.

Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 4:53 am

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:02 pm
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.

Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 4:53 am

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:02 pm 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.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:54 am 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.

NYTDirect wrote: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 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:46 pm

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.

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.

Azastan wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:15 pm

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:46 pm

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.

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 3:45 pm

Azastan wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:15 pm

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:46 pm

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 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 5:37 pm

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 3:45 pm

Azastan wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 2:15 pm

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.

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

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 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:44 pm 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.