Pandemics and Epidemiology (COVID-19, monkeypox, etc.)

But as I mentioned before, South Africa actually rejected the Oxford vaccine because they decided it wouldn't work against Delta. Their government revised to give it to their population and insisted on waiting for Pfizer/Moderna. Which were having production issues at the time. So they ended up behind on vaccinations. Meanwhile, the UK government, in a rare case of not totally mishandling things, decided the Oxford vaccine was good enough, got on with vaccinating everyone with whatever vaccines were available, and ended up with far more people having been vaccinated and protected against Delta.

Other countries in Africa...yeah, maybe. Although the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines aren't really usable in a lot of those countries anyway, because of the temperatures they need to be stored at. But South Africa's problems really are at least partly self inflicted (or rather inflicted by their own government).

Edited by pi4t on Dec 3rd 2021 at 6:30:39 AM

Also, the omicron variant was in Europe before it was first discovered by South African scientists. But it's somehow South Africa's fault. Guess which countries are being hit with travel bans and which countries are not, despite having the omicron variant? Hint: one group is in Africa and the other is in Europe

Edited by minseok42 on Dec 4th 2021 at 12:56:42 AM

I'm not saying it is South Africa's fault, but they are hardly blameless victims either. There is no neat and tidy morality tale about rich countries screwing over poor countries there.

Also, the kneejerk travel ban is hardly restricted to Africa. It has happened with the UK as well, for instance.

There may have been a few cases in other countries before it was spotted in South Africa. But in South Africa it's the dominant variant: tens of thousands of people are getting infected with it daily. In the other hand, Omicron only seems to have arrived in the Netherlands about a week ago, and there can't be more than a few hundred cases of it in the country at most. So the chances of Omicron getting in on a flight from South Africa is much, much higher than on one from the Netherlands.

Yes, this same scenario played out when the new variant was discovered in the UK about a year ago. Everyone closed their borders to us and things became rather difficult for us for a while. And they stayed closed even after a few cases were discovered in other countries. And they were quite right to do that, whatever Boris Johnson said at the time. No one except right wing nutters in the UK were complaining about racism at that point. And rightly so, because this strategy isn't driven by racism, but by trying to stop a deadly pathogen entering the country until we can get a vaccine ready for it.

(Side note: my phone just autocorrected "Boris" to "virus"which seems rather accurate!)

Edited by pi4t on Dec 3rd 2021 at 8:17:09 AM

I've seen the "Omicron was in Europe before South Africa!" claim before but going by this and the other tweets by that person this might be certain tests mistaking other variants for Omicron.

The article linked seemed to be saying it was in Europe before it was detected in South Africa.

That's also what I'm hearing on the news.

Seems like hospitalizations in South Africa are seeing a very steep increase that indicates that the "Omicron is harmless" narrative may be wishful thinking. And mind base rate bias - South Africa's population is younger than that in many Western countries so hospitalizations are likely to be lower there.

Relatively harmless. What is so hard to understand about that?

Yeah, I imagine things might play out differently once Omicron hits an older population.

That's one of the common myths the experts keep trying to debunk.

What you said is connected to a working theory with circumstantial evidence. Experts are well aware of beliefs such as 'viruses just evolved into non-problematic forms of more virulent strains', but direct evidence of that does not exist. That's why some researchers are dedicated to trying to find direct evidence.

For example, the idea that the 1918 influenza strain evolved into a modern, harmless cold, isn't true. Certain strains of modern seasonal flu are descended from it, but those strains are also descendents of other viruses, too. They have mixed lineages, which does not make it straight-forward to study the theory of whether virulence will decrease over time due to host adaptation. That's before observing that seasonal flu requires vaccine support, and still kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 4th 2021 at 12:40:03 PM

I don't think Omicron is going to be milder than Delta, for the simple fact that this goddamn pandemic has been a Hope Spot after another.

We thought we could eradicate the virus and then it turned out that it easily spread to many kinds of animals. We created a vaccine in record times and at almost the exact same time Delta emerged and made herd immunity impossible. We believed that it had a low mutation rate and there have been at least four dangerous variants in less than two years. We thought that previous infections could protect from reinfections for a while and Omicron is showing that this is not really the case (or so it seems at the moment).

I don't believe in the Gaia hypothesis and such stuff, but at times it feels like that the universe is toying with us.

And it still doesn't help we got anti vaxxers in the world that are not making this situation any better. It's a combo of the universe fucking with us and a bunch of twats that will choose to die on their hill of "muh fredums" while dragging others down with them.

It's tricky to put a number on pre-symptomatic transmission, but this WHO article from last year estimates that up to 44% of all transmissions occurred before symptoms started surfacing. Even people who (eventually) develop severe symptoms don't drop dead immediately, and the fact that they're usually isolated pretty quickly is probably biasing the transmission numbers towards asymptomatic carriers. So yeah, the belief that COVID variants will get less lethal as they grow more transmissible looks like wishful thinking at this point.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Dec 4th 2021 at 4:34:13 AM

I had my booster yesterday. All of my pre-appointment information said I'd be receiving Pfizer, but it was actually Moderna I was given. I have no problem with this. I was fine yesterday, did start to get some cold symptoms as evening wore on, a few symptoms woke up me up in the night, and I do feel like I have a cold now. It's all so mild, however, it's barely worth mention and doesn't stop me going about my day as normal. My arm is rather sore, but nothing particularly exciting. It's a completely different experience to the first dose of AZ, which knocked me out for 24 hours and left me with an extremely sore arm for nine weeks.

@Wyldchyld: How can a virus have mixed lineage? Wouldn't that require sexual reproduction?

Relatively harmless. What is so hard to understand about that?

The evidence isn't there to support this claim even if you add a weasel word.

Actually, there is evidence that Omicron causes fewer symptoms than Delta, including lack of smell and taste.

Different viruses can sometimes co-infect the same cell (coronaviruses allow this, many others don't). When this happens, their genomes can mix into a new genome, effectively creating a hybrid of the two previous viruses. It is a bit like how human reproductive cells from both parents exchange genes, creating a child who is genetically a mix of both parents.

As Redmess said, reassortment may be possible when two or more viruses are infecting a host at the same time, where viruses of different types swap genes, giving rise to "hybrid" viruses. Not all viruses do this, and it doesn't always happen even if the viruses can.

It's possible to construct phylogenetic trees to try and build up relationships between different viruses, who their common ancestors are (if they have any), and how long ago they diverged.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 4th 2021 at 4:58:37 PM

My work schedule for next week is a bit busier than I thought it would be. I’m wondering if it might throw a monkey wrench into my plan to get the booster shot. ^_^;;

Does your employer not offer paid time off to get the shot?

I’m not 100% sure at the moment. ^_^;; Like I said, for some reason, they’re not making as big a deal about the booster shots as they did for the original vaccine. :S

That does not seem to be the best basis to derive that conclusion from.

In my defense, I’m tired from how busy the day of work has been. ^_^;;

Surprised there hasn't been any major news about covid over the last couple days.

No News is good news, I guess?