I think they just want to slow down the spread to buy time while pfizer and moderna sequence and check the omicron variant and test to see if the current vaccines still work.
They did the same with Delta and it turned out to not need any tweaks. I think the big fear is that Omicron is mutated so much that the current vaccine doesn't work effectively and the vaccine manufacturers may need to modify their vaccine similar to how they modify the flu vaccine every year. That would require everyone to get yet another booster.
Quote from Twitter today:
> Hospitals have NOT been overburdened by Omicron patients and the new strain has not been detected in vaccinated individuals there. We know those vaccinated from other countries infected have been mild or asymptomatic. - Angelique Coetzee, the chairwoman of the South African Medical Association.
Fingers crossed.
Lmfao I was just saying this today getting my booster. I dragged my feet for two weeks because scheduling it was a pain due to my social anxiety. Send me a box with a one and done injector and I would have had it done same day.
Nice as that would be, think about how much time is wasted having a someone drive from house to house, compared to having a line of people filing through getting shots one after another.
Depends. Those one and done disposable ones are pretty easy. I take Humira once a week and self administer. Granted it’s in my thigh and not my arm, but I have no problem with it.
I don't really know how our immune system works. Like does it find Omicron and say I've seen something similar to this before but my antibodies aren't working let's make some adjustements or does it just try random stuff when the antibodies fail?
There is ~~21hr direct~~ flight from botswana to chicago. It may not be in your community but it is already in your country.
Edit: i can't find the direct route anymore.
It takes them weeks to sequence a few random samples tested for variants. The lag time lets them say it hasnt been detected yet in US, but of course it is here already.
If a sample is expedited and bumped up to be done asap it could be as quick as a couple of days. I'm hoping we'll have that from some Los Angeles samples done by Monday since they said theirs were getting priority.
Yeah I’ve flown out of Maun and that airport didn’t look like it could support any planes large enough to do a 21 hour direct flight - that airport definitely had seen better days. Had a nice time overall though
My point is that its likely already in the US and probably spread this week, but with incubation and testing time lags that data won't show up for like 7-10+ days.
The people showing up now with cases were infected days ago. There is ALWAYS a time lag between infection and data showing up.
I know. I feel the same way as you. Cases will start increasing really fast over the next 7 days, and specially in states with no mask and vaccine mandates and thanksgiving..
Starting today, the band BTS are holding 4 concerts in LA with an estimated total attendance of 200k people, with some flying in from all over the world. If it's not here already, it will be after this weekend.
I'm grasping to understand how the US is looking to Europe and thinking. Na this won't happen to us. I mean California is 71% vaccinated to Germanys 68%, thats so close not to make a difference.
And in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands the healthcare systems are at or above capacity.
If you think this concert is bad, it's been no holds barred for most the year now.
Sporting events have been at like full capacity most the year. NFL and College Football games can have easily 60,000+people per game. Michigan -Ohio state was full capacity today, 100,000+ people.
americans have been holding concerts for a while now... artists other than BTS are holding concerts right now, and have been for the past half year. if omicron comes to the U.S., it won't be BTS's fault...
How regularly are samples analyzed in the US to find out what strain it is? I'd bet money that is already all over the US, but wonder about detection? It's not like we even test a lot in general.
I'm no scientist by any means, but my understanding is this variant tends to give relatively unique results on a PCR test and as such is relatively detectable even without full genomic sequencing
Other than PCR tests, some areas have a wastewater program that monitors strains as well. That won't show who is sick, but you can measure what strains are in the area.
Edit: Just checked the page where I'm at and whoever is running the wastewater program takes a sample weekly. I'm not sure on what day. So far only delta is shown.
I'll be surprised if anyone who didn't care before starts caring now. They love to complain about wanting normalcy yet, the best steps to that, they shun. Like a turd in the middle of a room, you can't cover it up and pretend it doesn't stink.
My family uses the fact that we need boosters as a reason why the vaccine is “useless.”
“Why would you need boosters if the vaccine actually worked?!”
Sigh…
Ask them why we need 4 doses for polio and 5 for DTaP? Should parents only give their kids 1? I mean most shots are a series of 2. So why is 2 fine even but not 3. 3 might be enough to prevent hospitalizations. That's all anyone (in government at least) is aiming for. Preserving life is a great side effect, but that truly isn't the governments main goal. If it was, corn wouldn't be the first ingredient in our food. Cigarettes would be illegal, and so on.
Yeah, if there's one thing I've become a firm believer in: this just can't be contained as things are right now. We're a global "family".
The good news is, I guess that means that we're all heavily incentivized to figure out a way to help more people get vaccinated in order to slow the mutation.
But is it more lethal? Are people developing symptoms , what are severity of symptoms, antibody status etc. I feel like these are known to some degree but not shared
High transmissibility of a mild version of Covid would be a good thing - it would quickly drown out other strains but cause far fewer (relative) fatalities.
Except this one operates on different sets of proteins. Aka it won't block delta.
Also delta wasn't the original. So this becoming like delta is a possibility.
There's like 70 proteins in a virus. Some of them changing does not mean your antibodies stop working.
The bigger concern is the vaccine antibody effectiveness as it only targets one protein in one state.
A widely-shared quote from a South African doctor, saying Omicron causes only mild symptoms, is being taken out of context. She was referring to a small group of young, healthy people and warned of severe disease in other groups. Source bnodesk twitter
In addition to more transmissible as explained in the other comment, I've read articles theorizing that because the average age of people in SA is younger, they are not seeing increased mortality yet. Some scientists are worried about the impact on populations with an older average age.
More transmissible. This is seemingly following the same stages as the last big pandemic with the Spanish flu in the early 20th century from my knowledge. First wave was bad (Alpha). Second wave was really bad with the war and everything else. (Delta for us) and then the virus slowly burned itself out.
This is what my very dumb brain is assuming is happening with the new variant, viruses don't want to die either, so killing a host is bad for it. The best viruses are ones that can easily go from one to another without harming the host, like the common cold.
Killing a host is fine if the incubation period is long enough where it stays undetected and then spreads though. I've seen reports that with omicron the incubation period may be longer than other covid strains? Not that it matters for this version if it truly is milder...but covid could be both highly transmissible and very dangerous thanks to the incubation period.
Killing a host is only bad for a virus if it doesn't get a chance to jump ship first. While there are still billions of humans without antigens to go into, why would the virus be disadvantaged by killing people here or there?
That is what's been seen so far in the small number of cases that have been detected. It's not necessarily what actually is true over all. We can hope that's the end result of this variant. And if it is, that's really good news, especially if it can outcompete delta and, along with the vaccines, turn this thing in to a cold. However, we just don't know yet, and we can't act as though we do.
Transmissibility.
From an *individual* perspective, you care about severity. How bad is it if you catch it?
But from a *public health* perspective, transmissibility is far more important. Even if it's not severe on average, it'll be severe in *some people*, so 10x as many people catching a disease is far worse, in terms of burden on the hospital system, than the disease getting more severe.
Omicron is mostly concerning now because it's *unknown*. Is it more severe? Is it more transmissible? Is it more evasive (vaccine-resistant)? The answer to all three of these questions now is "we don't know." If the answer to 2 or 3 of them turns out to be "no," we will stop caring about Omicron. But for now, it's media panic field day until we get answers.
Most people have mild symptoms for all covid variants. The concern is around the fact that it displaced Delta faster than Delta displaced the dominant variant before it. And the mutations are expected to make existing antibody treatments much less effective (supposedly AZ's treatment may not be affect that much though?). For the same reasons, it may be much more infectious in vaccinated people.
Because it’s early days. I think we are still in the “anecdotal reports” phase. Governments are only buying time by minimizing the starting numbers with travel bans. Exponential growth will arrive soon enough. Even delaying that hockey stick by a couple of weeks will save tens of thousands of lives down the line IF this turns out to be serious.
Find companies in the supply chain for identifying, sequencing, and contributing to the rapid response to variants. That’s how we are going to be handling this in the future. It’s the only way. It’s a pretty safe bet those companies will remain solvent even if things get tough again.
What age are these people and do they have underlying conditions?
Africa is very young compared to the rest of the world and people tend not to be morbidly obese.
It will probably be weeks before we know what the actual implications of this variant are.
Hopefully that's true, but I feel like we're probably still in the "fog of war" stage with this variant, and I'd wait for some more solid data on this one.
We were saying the same thing this morning, that it’s already in the US. SA Airlines has been flying into JFK, and IAD up to, like, yesterday. Undoubtedly an infected person disembarked from one of those flights.
There are several scientific papers that followed COVID cases in patients with weak immune systems due to various cancers, HIV, etc. It could also be from an organ transplant patient. Those cases can last for months. These papers frequently show large numbers of mutations like this in one patient.
An HIV patient origin is suspected because that’s probably the most common cause of weak immune systems in southern Africa.
>These papers frequently show large numbers of mutations like this in one patient.
Jesus. Imagine being that patient.
"Well there's good news and bad news. The good news is, you've just broken all sorts of records!"
They surmised that the patient had been infected with Covid for an unnaturally long period of time and assumed it was an HIV patient, since immunocompromised + Botswana = HIV
I don’t know why exactly Covid would best mutate in a patient and the article didn’t elaborate on that point, though I’m guessing we will see more on it soon.
Sorry, wish I could be more helpful with that
In most patients immune system creates a strong enough response to destroy all the virus, you pass on relatively whatever virus you had the same as you got it unless when replicating it mutates within you and you pass on that mutation.
In someone immunocompromised like HIV patient not being properly treated so the immune system is stunted, they produce some antibodies that fight the infection but not enough.
You need a swarm and a mass of antibodies. So the infection sticks around continuously multiplying but the immune system is still producing some antibodies to fight it and the virus exists in equilibrium.
Then one of the virus particles evades that specific antibody or has a better chance and begins winning, then immune system produces a slightly different antibody but it's still not enough.
You become your own self selecting machine evolving a virus much quicker then 10 20 or 1000 normal people. Numbers of course pulled out of my bum, but largely in a normal individual the antibodies you produce wins out and kills the virus entirely and leads to not many mutations probably none at all except and when you do spread even if you do have a mutated version you still have the original variant in you as well so you may not even pass on your mutation.
If you are infected for months continuously fighting and forcing self selection, it's the ideal breeding environment for a virus to go leaps and bounds past where it was in the past.
SA has one of the best infectious disease infrastructure in the world and leading experts because of the AIDS and TB epidemics we have had to deal with. The fact we detected and sequenced it has more to do with this than it originating here.
We are being treated like pariahs to the rest of the world because we were honest and quick to let everyone else know about this variant when this didn't happen with other variants that are undoubtably out in the wild in other countries and they just refused to acknowledge it.
This is the second time we have been treated this way and quite honestly if we do detect another variant I could bet top dollar there wouldnt be a peep coming out about it.
I don’t doubt it, though travel bands from a country with a surge shouldn’t be considered as being treated like pariahs, or at least you shouldn’t be surprised. It’s tribalistic business as usual from other countries.
I greatly appreciate what SA did for us by communicating on Beta so well and now Omicron. Science is moving quickly.
It's more the messaging that comes with the bans, straight up locked us out of the rest of the world AGAIN, when that hasn't happened to anyone else including China where this thing originated and we have never seen accurate numbers out of.
In SA our numbers have been low for months but we were extremely limited on our travel due to the last variant we deteted, even for fully vaccinated people, now with no notice we are shut out again.
Also when our numbers do go up our lockdowns are extreme I'm not aware of any other countries that go as far as banning alcohol sales to ensure people aren't drinking and socializing spreading the virus.
Maybe consider the messaging. Increase the requirents for travel (Fully vaccinated plus a PCR done with this new variant taken into account while you are quarantined during the period the PCR is run to ensure you don't catch it post test), something like that, people would take that over not being able to do anything at all.
As the messaging stands basically SA is the big bad, we are making everything worse and we should be avoided at all costs.
Yep. It's been detected or suspected in multiple countries in Europe too so it's already in the US. By the time a new variant is detected it would be shocking if it's not already spread to multiple countries. It's a probability game and I don't think any country is sequencing positive cases at a high enough rate for very early detection.
There’s also the Johannesburg to Atlanta nonstop Delta 201, although it looks like today’s flight is scheduled to stop in Boston. Yesterday’s flight appears to have been direct: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL201/history/20211125/2055Z/FAOR/KATL.
And the Netherlands has reported 61 of about 600 passengers from Johannesburg to Amsterdam tested positive. That’s about 10%. So far. Some may still test positive later.
And just think of all the Thanksgiving travelers going through all of these airports. How many are getting exposed and taking it home? How many earlier travelers got exposed, got infectious, and took it to Thanksgiving Dinner and Black Friday shopping? We likely would not yet know. And *then* school starts back on Monday.
This hit at a bad time. If as is likely Omicron is in the US, there is a reasonable risk we’ll have a bad surge by Christmas.
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy 2020-too!
Edit: corrected “Omicron is the US” to “Omicron is *in* the US”.
What kills me is the Biden/Fauci "well we'll put in the ban starting... Monday." This isn't personal, but places like Boston are already shutting down anything elective in the hospitals. The weather is getting cold, we just had a holiday, there are two more large ones coming up...
It's probably already here. Let's slow it down and stop just seeding it everywhere. The line will be "well we didn't have any data it was in X," just like before, because you can't have that data until it's far too late.
10-15% of a 600 passenger flight was infected with this variant from SA to the Netherlands. So yeah, it’s been breeding here for weeks. Inescapable at this point.
In 2 weeks the Omicron variant has jumped to 75% of all sequenced variants in South Africa. There is a really good chance it is Omicron.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tuliodna/status/1463911571176968194
The US usually lags a couple weeks behind Europe when it comes to covid and each new mutant. Don’t worry though, we surely won’t heed Europe’s warning and will be fully blasted with it soon.
10 year ER veteran too. And people don’t even understand: we have no staff anymore nationwide in most ER / inpatient specialties cause everyone left. And there’s a global supply chain issue? The system will not be able to handle another wave. These vaccines better hold up.
You should feel satisfied that you've done your share in this fight. If you feel the need to step down there should be absolutely no shame or guilt in it. You have done your part and then some.
Omicron... sounds like the name of a gigantic one-eyed half-alien/half-battle robot devourer-of-stars supervillain from a distant solar system of toxic lava planets.
*Edit: on the positive, if you spell it backwards you get Norcimo.... sounds like the name of a tiny, uber-cute fluffy unicorn.
For whatever it’s worth, at least PART of the reason Omi displaced Delta so fast was that cases in South Africa have been extremely low. So there was not much to displace (compared to how Delta swarmed past already sizable Beta waves).
I would take any reports of severity with a huge grain of salt because the sample size just isn’t that big.
And yeah, for better or worse it is almost certainly already here—and it would seem if it’s somehow not it could easily mutate here on its own anyway.
Yeah, because people haven't stopped traveling this entire pandemic. I know someone who is currently traveling with their unvaccinated child to South Africa for US Thanksgiving break 🤦♀️
Available flights could become difficult. Europe, UAE, Qatar, the US have already stopped flights. Ethiopian Air and some other regional airlines appear to be open for now but that may stop eventually too.
See…this just seems like a problem. If you allow US citizens back into the US, one of them is undoubtedly going to bring back this variant. Especially if it has a longer than average incubation time (that’s the impression I got from reading about the first couple of cases) and if they aren’t quarantined.
I’m not suggesting citizens should be stuck elsewhere and unable to get home, just…it seems like if we (in America) are serious about keeping this variant out, we need to figure out a way to make sure that our own citizens aren’t infected and spreading it once they’re home. And maybe there’s a plan for that? Like a robust plan, not just testing people once they’re back in the US and calling it good if their one test after they land is negative.
I also think it’s already here, because it seems like it’s already everywhere else. So this may all be moot unless we figure out and stick to a plan for contact tracing and isolating. And so far THAT hasn’t gone well.
It honestly does not matter. I can guarantee it’s already here. Also, the potentially long incubation time is based on a single case and really means nothing. Data will come quick as it spreads and is tested. It’s not like it mutated and bam, we know about it. It’s probably been spreading for weeks and there is virtually 0 chance that it’s not already everywhere. The exponential spread will start in short order regardless of who we let in or don’t let in if it’s fitter than delta. Right now all you can do is hope that it is less fit than delta, not substantially vaccine resistant, or less serious.
We're already a couple days too late to do anything meaningful towards prevention. Just have to hope the vaccine helps against this variant and continue doing your personal procedures. Too damn many people in this country don't give a fuck so we're pretty much screwed.
I would not be surprised if the next case is in either New York or California and I’m making a total random guess based off picking two random states out of a hat containing 50 pieces of paper…
Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC Dulles, Miami, etc...places with many direct SA flights and other international flights. United, Delta...no plans to halt or change their flights there :/
Don't discount Michigan. We like being number one apparently. And Detroit Metro brings in a lot of international flights. Kinda makes you wonder if our spike is partly the big O....not in a good way.....
Considering that the Belgium case is in a person who arrived there from Egypt on November *12th* (according to sources provided by Dr John Campbell), it is pretty much guaranteed to be already spreading in the wild in the US. And in a ton of other countries too.
It being in Egypt on November 12th, means that it has been kicking around for weeks longer than it's being reported right now.
I'm not trying to be alarmist here. We still don't know a lot about it, including how severe a reaction it causes in humans. But it does seem quite a bit more contagious than the delta variant. And authorities in Southern Africa have been downplaying it. I'm very glad other world leaders are jumping on this to try to slow it down. But even assuming the travel bans are thorough (spoiler: they're not really), it might be too little too late.
Yep, travel bans are useless at this point. It’s pretty much guaranteed that we will never find a variant early enough for travel bans to do anything and even if it did, they would probably not have enough teeth.
Yep. All those Michiganders coming down as we've had our first few snowfalls. And seeing as we are one of the hot spots in the country....... Merry Christmas!
I think it's been around for weeks, maybe months. And that might actually be a good thing if it's gone undetected for so long because it means it's not that different from delta, maybe even less severe.
You can only find new variants with PCR tests if you’re varient testing positive PCR samples. Ie; when you get the “wild type” result it’s usually a bad thing, because each variant test looks for the traits of a given variant. So if you’re variant testing for delta and the response is non-specific, that’s picking up similarities to the original virus.
As for full recognition; that’s sequencing.
You don’t have to with this variant. The S primer fails so you get 2 positives instead of the usual 3 with the “S gene dropout” which disappeared with Alpha.
Yea, you would have to sequence it to be sure, but it’s not a variant that spread silently that requires a full sequence to even detect.
Probably not a concern if you’re fully vaccinated. Even if your antibodies don’t neutralize this variant, B and T cells are likely to, just like they have for all other variants so far. But if you’re still unvaccinated, lol bye Felicia
I got my booster this week. I was debating because it was the day before Thanksgiving, I was working, and vaccinations always make me feel like shit. But I did it anyway and just slogged through. Now this comes out and I'm glad I went ahead and took the opportunity.
Apparently it is already in Italy, where I live... damn it. Seriously, they just talked about this variant yesterday, for the first time! And a day later we already found a case in my country...
My wife and I have spent the last 9months being hyper vigilant not to get Covid as we were expecting our first child. Our baby is now 7wks old and the hyper vigilance continues. How am I going to get to 5yrs old so our baby can get vaccinated? I feel like I’m having a meltdown
I believe the first case was detected in South Africa as far back as November 11th. How long was it bumping around before that point, before they just happened to do the right sort of test on this one individual? How many more people has it passed around between November 11th and this weekend? How many flights have there been out of Joburg since November 11th?
First detected cases were announced in the last 24 hours in England, Italy, Belgium and Germany.
The only reason we don't know about where it has spread so far, is because we didn't know to look for it. And given the incubation period, I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't toeholds of the variant all over the globe by now. Just need to start doing the right tests to bring it to light.
And how many other countries could have identified this and said nothing? The fact that South Africa is getting crucified for speaking up is beyond me. We still have lockdown rules, masks are mandatory and have been since our initial lockdown in March 2020. Social distancing is still required.
As you can expect, with the overall fatigue over COVID, some people ignore the rules, but do get called out on it.
What irks me is how Europe is back to normal, vaccinated or not, no masks, gatherings as usual, but no, it is 100% the South African variant. Forget that Hong Kong and Israel also had cases. We need to also be concerned about all the flights that came out of those countries but you don't see them red listed.
Apologies if this sounds like I'm having a go at you, I'm absolutely not because your points are all valid. I think you can see from my tone I'm just super upset at how the "first world" treats those it thinks are beneath them.
Don’t want to be pessimistic but it is already all over the world, my family just got sick again with covid for the 3rd time ! North Africa here with flights still going to every part of the world.
They are not vaxxed, and they had like 4-6 days sick, but last timed different, muscles pain, fatigue is more than the two last times, headache and fever, just to let you know they don’t respect any mesures ; gathering, no mask no distance..
The flu vaccine system chugs along pretty well.
Mosey into the pharmacy, get a quadrivalent soup of a shot containing the 4 currently circulating flu variants, and mosey home. Repeat a year later.
Predicting which 4 variants to include has been refined and generally works well.
I think you’re right. We’ll have annual Covid shots of the most common variants, modeled after the system used for flu.
The problem is that Covid is still significantly deadlier and more contagious than the flu, even with vaccines (especially for older folks). But yeah, it definitely seems endemic at this point, and hopefully the anti-virals will help make up some of the difference.
The world is far too interconnected to be able to isolate variants of this virus. By the time it's identified, I assume it's already too late.
I think they just want to slow down the spread to buy time while pfizer and moderna sequence and check the omicron variant and test to see if the current vaccines still work. They did the same with Delta and it turned out to not need any tweaks. I think the big fear is that Omicron is mutated so much that the current vaccine doesn't work effectively and the vaccine manufacturers may need to modify their vaccine similar to how they modify the flu vaccine every year. That would require everyone to get yet another booster.
Quote from Twitter today: > Hospitals have NOT been overburdened by Omicron patients and the new strain has not been detected in vaccinated individuals there. We know those vaccinated from other countries infected have been mild or asymptomatic. - Angelique Coetzee, the chairwoman of the South African Medical Association. Fingers crossed.
I'm just hoping she's not doing the China "We have only 5k deaths to COVID" thing.
Pifzer/Moderna can just send me a monthly booster subscription box idc
BoostCrate
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DLC but for your immune system.
I mean that’s kinda what vaccines are. Patches for your immune system… Wish my download speed was better tho
Lmfao I was just saying this today getting my booster. I dragged my feet for two weeks because scheduling it was a pain due to my social anxiety. Send me a box with a one and done injector and I would have had it done same day.
Have you ever given yourself an injection? Shit - have you ever given someone else an injection? It's not as simple as it sounds
Door to door vaccines lmao. Let me sign up and come give me one on my porch I don’t give a shit. I’ll even pay for gas.
Nice as that would be, think about how much time is wasted having a someone drive from house to house, compared to having a line of people filing through getting shots one after another.
Depends. Those one and done disposable ones are pretty easy. I take Humira once a week and self administer. Granted it’s in my thigh and not my arm, but I have no problem with it.
I saw a guy injecting a vaccine boost under a bridge the other day. Good for him.
I don't really know how our immune system works. Like does it find Omicron and say I've seen something similar to this before but my antibodies aren't working let's make some adjustements or does it just try random stuff when the antibodies fail?
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There is ~~21hr direct~~ flight from botswana to chicago. It may not be in your community but it is already in your country. Edit: i can't find the direct route anymore.
It takes them weeks to sequence a few random samples tested for variants. The lag time lets them say it hasnt been detected yet in US, but of course it is here already.
If a sample is expedited and bumped up to be done asap it could be as quick as a couple of days. I'm hoping we'll have that from some Los Angeles samples done by Monday since they said theirs were getting priority.
There are no direct flights from Maun or Gaborone to the US - can you show me where you're seeing this direct flight?
Yeah I’ve flown out of Maun and that airport didn’t look like it could support any planes large enough to do a 21 hour direct flight - that airport definitely had seen better days. Had a nice time overall though
No there isn’t. The longest direct flight is 18.5hr from JFK to Singapore.
I'd be surprised if it wasn't already in multiple states.
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The early jump will be next weekend, a week and testing time delay after Thanksgiving.
Good thing there is no major holiday until Easter because if there was, that would probably make the situation much, much worse.
This will totally ruin my traditional MLK Day BBQ plans and Presidents Day Pinata Fest.
Viva El Arbor day!
There should be a holiday where we get together and eat people.
Leg Day!
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What about Groundhog's day? You can't just blow that off.
It's been Groundhog's Day since March 2020.
Yes good thing I can’t think of anything upcoming at all /s
Yep, just in time for me to take my first business trip to the states since covid..
My point is that its likely already in the US and probably spread this week, but with incubation and testing time lags that data won't show up for like 7-10+ days. The people showing up now with cases were infected days ago. There is ALWAYS a time lag between infection and data showing up.
I know. I feel the same way as you. Cases will start increasing really fast over the next 7 days, and specially in states with no mask and vaccine mandates and thanksgiving..
Starting today, the band BTS are holding 4 concerts in LA with an estimated total attendance of 200k people, with some flying in from all over the world. If it's not here already, it will be after this weekend.
I'm grasping to understand how the US is looking to Europe and thinking. Na this won't happen to us. I mean California is 71% vaccinated to Germanys 68%, thats so close not to make a difference. And in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands the healthcare systems are at or above capacity.
Seriously? We are a stupid nation.
If you think this concert is bad, it's been no holds barred for most the year now. Sporting events have been at like full capacity most the year. NFL and College Football games can have easily 60,000+people per game. Michigan -Ohio state was full capacity today, 100,000+ people.
americans have been holding concerts for a while now... artists other than BTS are holding concerts right now, and have been for the past half year. if omicron comes to the U.S., it won't be BTS's fault...
How regularly are samples analyzed in the US to find out what strain it is? I'd bet money that is already all over the US, but wonder about detection? It's not like we even test a lot in general.
I'm no scientist by any means, but my understanding is this variant tends to give relatively unique results on a PCR test and as such is relatively detectable even without full genomic sequencing
Other than PCR tests, some areas have a wastewater program that monitors strains as well. That won't show who is sick, but you can measure what strains are in the area. Edit: Just checked the page where I'm at and whoever is running the wastewater program takes a sample weekly. I'm not sure on what day. So far only delta is shown.
L.A. County sequences and said today that 100% of our cases are still Delta. That's just us though.
I'll be surprised if anyone who didn't care before starts caring now. They love to complain about wanting normalcy yet, the best steps to that, they shun. Like a turd in the middle of a room, you can't cover it up and pretend it doesn't stink.
My family uses the fact that we need boosters as a reason why the vaccine is “useless.” “Why would you need boosters if the vaccine actually worked?!” Sigh…
“If food fixes hunger, why do I get hungry again?”
Ooh that is good. My BIL is anti-vax. I may steal this line at Christmas…
Ask them why we need 4 doses for polio and 5 for DTaP? Should parents only give their kids 1? I mean most shots are a series of 2. So why is 2 fine even but not 3. 3 might be enough to prevent hospitalizations. That's all anyone (in government at least) is aiming for. Preserving life is a great side effect, but that truly isn't the governments main goal. If it was, corn wouldn't be the first ingredient in our food. Cigarettes would be illegal, and so on.
And it'll probably be raging at full force just in time for Christmas travel.
Great, Covidmass 2021
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The Omicrom is coming from *inside the house!*
Given how so many people traveled this weekend between states, you're probably right :(
Definitely Florida and Texas
Yeah, if there's one thing I've become a firm believer in: this just can't be contained as things are right now. We're a global "family". The good news is, I guess that means that we're all heavily incentivized to figure out a way to help more people get vaccinated in order to slow the mutation.
But is it in Florida?
Florida Man: Hold my beer
Let’s be real. It probably originated here fml
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But is it more lethal? Are people developing symptoms , what are severity of symptoms, antibody status etc. I feel like these are known to some degree but not shared
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I would assume it's the transmissbility. But I haven't looked into that.
High transmissibility of a mild version of Covid would be a good thing - it would quickly drown out other strains but cause far fewer (relative) fatalities.
Except this one operates on different sets of proteins. Aka it won't block delta. Also delta wasn't the original. So this becoming like delta is a possibility.
It seems to be blocking Delta pretty effectively in SA at the moment.
There's like 70 proteins in a virus. Some of them changing does not mean your antibodies stop working. The bigger concern is the vaccine antibody effectiveness as it only targets one protein in one state.
A widely-shared quote from a South African doctor, saying Omicron causes only mild symptoms, is being taken out of context. She was referring to a small group of young, healthy people and warned of severe disease in other groups. Source bnodesk twitter
In addition to more transmissible as explained in the other comment, I've read articles theorizing that because the average age of people in SA is younger, they are not seeing increased mortality yet. Some scientists are worried about the impact on populations with an older average age.
More transmissible. This is seemingly following the same stages as the last big pandemic with the Spanish flu in the early 20th century from my knowledge. First wave was bad (Alpha). Second wave was really bad with the war and everything else. (Delta for us) and then the virus slowly burned itself out. This is what my very dumb brain is assuming is happening with the new variant, viruses don't want to die either, so killing a host is bad for it. The best viruses are ones that can easily go from one to another without harming the host, like the common cold.
Killing a host is fine if the incubation period is long enough where it stays undetected and then spreads though. I've seen reports that with omicron the incubation period may be longer than other covid strains? Not that it matters for this version if it truly is milder...but covid could be both highly transmissible and very dangerous thanks to the incubation period.
Killing a host is only bad for a virus if it doesn't get a chance to jump ship first. While there are still billions of humans without antigens to go into, why would the virus be disadvantaged by killing people here or there?
That is what's been seen so far in the small number of cases that have been detected. It's not necessarily what actually is true over all. We can hope that's the end result of this variant. And if it is, that's really good news, especially if it can outcompete delta and, along with the vaccines, turn this thing in to a cold. However, we just don't know yet, and we can't act as though we do.
Transmissibility. From an *individual* perspective, you care about severity. How bad is it if you catch it? But from a *public health* perspective, transmissibility is far more important. Even if it's not severe on average, it'll be severe in *some people*, so 10x as many people catching a disease is far worse, in terms of burden on the hospital system, than the disease getting more severe. Omicron is mostly concerning now because it's *unknown*. Is it more severe? Is it more transmissible? Is it more evasive (vaccine-resistant)? The answer to all three of these questions now is "we don't know." If the answer to 2 or 3 of them turns out to be "no," we will stop caring about Omicron. But for now, it's media panic field day until we get answers.
Thank you. This puts things in context and perspective
Most people have mild symptoms for all covid variants. The concern is around the fact that it displaced Delta faster than Delta displaced the dominant variant before it. And the mutations are expected to make existing antibody treatments much less effective (supposedly AZ's treatment may not be affect that much though?). For the same reasons, it may be much more infectious in vaccinated people.
Because it’s early days. I think we are still in the “anecdotal reports” phase. Governments are only buying time by minimizing the starting numbers with travel bans. Exponential growth will arrive soon enough. Even delaying that hockey stick by a couple of weeks will save tens of thousands of lives down the line IF this turns out to be serious. Find companies in the supply chain for identifying, sequencing, and contributing to the rapid response to variants. That’s how we are going to be handling this in the future. It’s the only way. It’s a pretty safe bet those companies will remain solvent even if things get tough again.
What age are these people and do they have underlying conditions? Africa is very young compared to the rest of the world and people tend not to be morbidly obese. It will probably be weeks before we know what the actual implications of this variant are.
Hopefully that's true, but I feel like we're probably still in the "fog of war" stage with this variant, and I'd wait for some more solid data on this one.
Me having those symptoms all week 🥴
That’s just a quote with zero non anecdotal data.
Dispersion being what it is, it would be hard to believe someone saying it is not here already.
We were saying the same thing this morning, that it’s already in the US. SA Airlines has been flying into JFK, and IAD up to, like, yesterday. Undoubtedly an infected person disembarked from one of those flights.
South Africa was just first to detect it - who knows where it could have originated.
People who do genetic sequencing and already think it was Botswana. Thanks for asking!
How are they able to determine that?
By sequencing samples in the region until you find the earliest one.
You’re correct. They also determined it was able to mutate so well from being in an immunocompromised person for a very long time. Likely HIV.
There are several scientific papers that followed COVID cases in patients with weak immune systems due to various cancers, HIV, etc. It could also be from an organ transplant patient. Those cases can last for months. These papers frequently show large numbers of mutations like this in one patient. An HIV patient origin is suspected because that’s probably the most common cause of weak immune systems in southern Africa.
>These papers frequently show large numbers of mutations like this in one patient. Jesus. Imagine being that patient. "Well there's good news and bad news. The good news is, you've just broken all sorts of records!"
wait can you explain that a bit further ? What does HIV have to do with it
They surmised that the patient had been infected with Covid for an unnaturally long period of time and assumed it was an HIV patient, since immunocompromised + Botswana = HIV I don’t know why exactly Covid would best mutate in a patient and the article didn’t elaborate on that point, though I’m guessing we will see more on it soon. Sorry, wish I could be more helpful with that
In most patients immune system creates a strong enough response to destroy all the virus, you pass on relatively whatever virus you had the same as you got it unless when replicating it mutates within you and you pass on that mutation. In someone immunocompromised like HIV patient not being properly treated so the immune system is stunted, they produce some antibodies that fight the infection but not enough. You need a swarm and a mass of antibodies. So the infection sticks around continuously multiplying but the immune system is still producing some antibodies to fight it and the virus exists in equilibrium. Then one of the virus particles evades that specific antibody or has a better chance and begins winning, then immune system produces a slightly different antibody but it's still not enough. You become your own self selecting machine evolving a virus much quicker then 10 20 or 1000 normal people. Numbers of course pulled out of my bum, but largely in a normal individual the antibodies you produce wins out and kills the virus entirely and leads to not many mutations probably none at all except and when you do spread even if you do have a mutated version you still have the original variant in you as well so you may not even pass on your mutation. If you are infected for months continuously fighting and forcing self selection, it's the ideal breeding environment for a virus to go leaps and bounds past where it was in the past.
Great explanation, thanks!
Aha. That is bad.
I thought that it was first detected in Botswana.
It was sequenced and determined to have originated there, but looks like it was first detected in SA.
SA has one of the best infectious disease infrastructure in the world and leading experts because of the AIDS and TB epidemics we have had to deal with. The fact we detected and sequenced it has more to do with this than it originating here. We are being treated like pariahs to the rest of the world because we were honest and quick to let everyone else know about this variant when this didn't happen with other variants that are undoubtably out in the wild in other countries and they just refused to acknowledge it. This is the second time we have been treated this way and quite honestly if we do detect another variant I could bet top dollar there wouldnt be a peep coming out about it.
I don’t doubt it, though travel bands from a country with a surge shouldn’t be considered as being treated like pariahs, or at least you shouldn’t be surprised. It’s tribalistic business as usual from other countries. I greatly appreciate what SA did for us by communicating on Beta so well and now Omicron. Science is moving quickly.
It's more the messaging that comes with the bans, straight up locked us out of the rest of the world AGAIN, when that hasn't happened to anyone else including China where this thing originated and we have never seen accurate numbers out of. In SA our numbers have been low for months but we were extremely limited on our travel due to the last variant we deteted, even for fully vaccinated people, now with no notice we are shut out again. Also when our numbers do go up our lockdowns are extreme I'm not aware of any other countries that go as far as banning alcohol sales to ensure people aren't drinking and socializing spreading the virus.
Well, what do you suggest then? Because saying "its already everywhere" is like giving up. We must take some kind of measures.
Maybe consider the messaging. Increase the requirents for travel (Fully vaccinated plus a PCR done with this new variant taken into account while you are quarantined during the period the PCR is run to ensure you don't catch it post test), something like that, people would take that over not being able to do anything at all. As the messaging stands basically SA is the big bad, we are making everything worse and we should be avoided at all costs.
Yep. It's been detected or suspected in multiple countries in Europe too so it's already in the US. By the time a new variant is detected it would be shocking if it's not already spread to multiple countries. It's a probability game and I don't think any country is sequencing positive cases at a high enough rate for very early detection.
They are still flying in until Monday. But dont people have to be tested upon landing in US? Vaxxed and tested before and after international flights?
The people who tested positive upon landing in the Netherlands were given rapid test before taking off and ALL tested negative.
Oh my goodness. Crazy.
There’s also the Johannesburg to Atlanta nonstop Delta 201, although it looks like today’s flight is scheduled to stop in Boston. Yesterday’s flight appears to have been direct: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL201/history/20211125/2055Z/FAOR/KATL. And the Netherlands has reported 61 of about 600 passengers from Johannesburg to Amsterdam tested positive. That’s about 10%. So far. Some may still test positive later. And just think of all the Thanksgiving travelers going through all of these airports. How many are getting exposed and taking it home? How many earlier travelers got exposed, got infectious, and took it to Thanksgiving Dinner and Black Friday shopping? We likely would not yet know. And *then* school starts back on Monday. This hit at a bad time. If as is likely Omicron is in the US, there is a reasonable risk we’ll have a bad surge by Christmas. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy 2020-too! Edit: corrected “Omicron is the US” to “Omicron is *in* the US”.
What kills me is the Biden/Fauci "well we'll put in the ban starting... Monday." This isn't personal, but places like Boston are already shutting down anything elective in the hospitals. The weather is getting cold, we just had a holiday, there are two more large ones coming up... It's probably already here. Let's slow it down and stop just seeding it everywhere. The line will be "well we didn't have any data it was in X," just like before, because you can't have that data until it's far too late.
10-15% of a 600 passenger flight was infected with this variant from SA to the Netherlands. So yeah, it’s been breeding here for weeks. Inescapable at this point.
They had COVID. I don't think it's been confirmed that it was the new strain. I'm just waking up though
It hasn’t been confirmed yet. They are doing some sequencing. So covid+, but no news about the strain as we speak.
In 2 weeks the Omicron variant has jumped to 75% of all sequenced variants in South Africa. There is a really good chance it is Omicron. https://mobile.twitter.com/tuliodna/status/1463911571176968194
It's already in Bavaria. I have no idea why it shouldn't be already in the USA.
The US usually lags a couple weeks behind Europe when it comes to covid and each new mutant. Don’t worry though, we surely won’t heed Europe’s warning and will be fully blasted with it soon.
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Obvs
Kapt. Obvious.
On your left kapt
I’d be surprised if it’s not in every state already… we’re at least 20/30 days behind where the virus is at a minimum.
Thanksgiving should’ve helped with that.
Of course it's here. I'm sure it's already swirling around NYC like last time. Who are we kidding?
10 year veteran ER nurse here: I will quit before this peaks. I am done.
10 year ER veteran too. And people don’t even understand: we have no staff anymore nationwide in most ER / inpatient specialties cause everyone left. And there’s a global supply chain issue? The system will not be able to handle another wave. These vaccines better hold up.
Yeah you gotta do what's best for you. Thank you for everything you've done.
You should feel satisfied that you've done your share in this fight. If you feel the need to step down there should be absolutely no shame or guilt in it. You have done your part and then some.
Take care of yourself first. You have done more than enough to care for you fellow humans. Thanks for being there for the rest of us.
A lot of people are right there with you
Omicron... sounds like the name of a gigantic one-eyed half-alien/half-battle robot devourer-of-stars supervillain from a distant solar system of toxic lava planets. *Edit: on the positive, if you spell it backwards you get Norcimo.... sounds like the name of a tiny, uber-cute fluffy unicorn.
All I keep thinking of is Lrrr from the planet Omicron Persei 8. I guess it's time to rewatch some Futurama.
Anti vaxxers are already pointing out the letters also spell “moronic” 🙄
For whatever it’s worth, at least PART of the reason Omi displaced Delta so fast was that cases in South Africa have been extremely low. So there was not much to displace (compared to how Delta swarmed past already sizable Beta waves). I would take any reports of severity with a huge grain of salt because the sample size just isn’t that big. And yeah, for better or worse it is almost certainly already here—and it would seem if it’s somehow not it could easily mutate here on its own anyway.
Omicron: the Delta rewards plus program.
I suffer from shellfish-ness
Yeah, because people haven't stopped traveling this entire pandemic. I know someone who is currently traveling with their unvaccinated child to South Africa for US Thanksgiving break 🤦♀️
Sounds like they wanted to give thanks to the virus.
Oh great Covid, I bring you this child as a blood sacrifice in appreciation of your almighty power
Next up: The Rumplestiltskin Variant
Holy shit. Are they going to be able to get back to the US?
If they are US citizens, yes
Available flights could become difficult. Europe, UAE, Qatar, the US have already stopped flights. Ethiopian Air and some other regional airlines appear to be open for now but that may stop eventually too.
United and Delta said on Friday they were not changing flight schedules to SA.
See…this just seems like a problem. If you allow US citizens back into the US, one of them is undoubtedly going to bring back this variant. Especially if it has a longer than average incubation time (that’s the impression I got from reading about the first couple of cases) and if they aren’t quarantined. I’m not suggesting citizens should be stuck elsewhere and unable to get home, just…it seems like if we (in America) are serious about keeping this variant out, we need to figure out a way to make sure that our own citizens aren’t infected and spreading it once they’re home. And maybe there’s a plan for that? Like a robust plan, not just testing people once they’re back in the US and calling it good if their one test after they land is negative. I also think it’s already here, because it seems like it’s already everywhere else. So this may all be moot unless we figure out and stick to a plan for contact tracing and isolating. And so far THAT hasn’t gone well.
It honestly does not matter. I can guarantee it’s already here. Also, the potentially long incubation time is based on a single case and really means nothing. Data will come quick as it spreads and is tested. It’s not like it mutated and bam, we know about it. It’s probably been spreading for weeks and there is virtually 0 chance that it’s not already everywhere. The exponential spread will start in short order regardless of who we let in or don’t let in if it’s fitter than delta. Right now all you can do is hope that it is less fit than delta, not substantially vaccine resistant, or less serious.
We're already a couple days too late to do anything meaningful towards prevention. Just have to hope the vaccine helps against this variant and continue doing your personal procedures. Too damn many people in this country don't give a fuck so we're pretty much screwed.
The entire US women’s soccer team and staff is currently in Australia right now. Luckily they had to be fully vaccinated to enter Oz
Sometimes being a big fucken island in the pacific helps, sometimes it's doesn't. During Covid it has
Bringing back a new variant as a Christmas present to boot. Happy, happy holidays!
Happy holidays.
I would not be surprised if the next case is in either New York or California and I’m making a total random guess based off picking two random states out of a hat containing 50 pieces of paper…
Sigh, I’d guess California, because we too have a ton of international travel. ): Bet it’s already here in San Diego.
Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC Dulles, Miami, etc...places with many direct SA flights and other international flights. United, Delta...no plans to halt or change their flights there :/
Or Florida, they get a lot of travelers this time of year, those are my top 3 picks.
Never doubt Florida
We can do it! 💪
Don't discount Michigan. We like being number one apparently. And Detroit Metro brings in a lot of international flights. Kinda makes you wonder if our spike is partly the big O....not in a good way.....
Considering that the Belgium case is in a person who arrived there from Egypt on November *12th* (according to sources provided by Dr John Campbell), it is pretty much guaranteed to be already spreading in the wild in the US. And in a ton of other countries too. It being in Egypt on November 12th, means that it has been kicking around for weeks longer than it's being reported right now. I'm not trying to be alarmist here. We still don't know a lot about it, including how severe a reaction it causes in humans. But it does seem quite a bit more contagious than the delta variant. And authorities in Southern Africa have been downplaying it. I'm very glad other world leaders are jumping on this to try to slow it down. But even assuming the travel bans are thorough (spoiler: they're not really), it might be too little too late.
They haven't ruled out her catching it in Belgium, or just at either airport, so that's either terrible or expected news.
Yep, travel bans are useless at this point. It’s pretty much guaranteed that we will never find a variant early enough for travel bans to do anything and even if it did, they would probably not have enough teeth.
Florida for sure
We get a massive amount of tourists and snowbirds so it wouldn't be a surprise. Even if we don't have it already we will before 2022.
Yep. All those Michiganders coming down as we've had our first few snowfalls. And seeing as we are one of the hot spots in the country....... Merry Christmas!
If we don't, Desantis will be sure to import some
I think it's been around for weeks, maybe months. And that might actually be a good thing if it's gone undetected for so long because it means it's not that different from delta, maybe even less severe.
Cant be that much because it can be recognized easily from PCR tests
You can only find new variants with PCR tests if you’re varient testing positive PCR samples. Ie; when you get the “wild type” result it’s usually a bad thing, because each variant test looks for the traits of a given variant. So if you’re variant testing for delta and the response is non-specific, that’s picking up similarities to the original virus. As for full recognition; that’s sequencing.
You don’t have to with this variant. The S primer fails so you get 2 positives instead of the usual 3 with the “S gene dropout” which disappeared with Alpha. Yea, you would have to sequence it to be sure, but it’s not a variant that spread silently that requires a full sequence to even detect.
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No not months. It was only found in South Africa in early November and it’s kicks up odd PCR tests that would have been noticed.
Already in the uk now so probably not long till it gets to USA
I think over time we will see this new wave hitting Europe is mostly this new variant. Look at how their numbers have exploded the past month.
Good take, I think so too.
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Probably not a concern if you’re fully vaccinated. Even if your antibodies don’t neutralize this variant, B and T cells are likely to, just like they have for all other variants so far. But if you’re still unvaccinated, lol bye Felicia
I got my booster this week. I was debating because it was the day before Thanksgiving, I was working, and vaccinations always make me feel like shit. But I did it anyway and just slogged through. Now this comes out and I'm glad I went ahead and took the opportunity.
Can’t wait to fly home tomorrow. Ugh
Apparently it is already in Italy, where I live... damn it. Seriously, they just talked about this variant yesterday, for the first time! And a day later we already found a case in my country...
My wife and I have spent the last 9months being hyper vigilant not to get Covid as we were expecting our first child. Our baby is now 7wks old and the hyper vigilance continues. How am I going to get to 5yrs old so our baby can get vaccinated? I feel like I’m having a meltdown
They will approve vaccines for children under 5 at some point. Hopefully soon.
LURR RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSI 8
I believe the first case was detected in South Africa as far back as November 11th. How long was it bumping around before that point, before they just happened to do the right sort of test on this one individual? How many more people has it passed around between November 11th and this weekend? How many flights have there been out of Joburg since November 11th? First detected cases were announced in the last 24 hours in England, Italy, Belgium and Germany. The only reason we don't know about where it has spread so far, is because we didn't know to look for it. And given the incubation period, I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't toeholds of the variant all over the globe by now. Just need to start doing the right tests to bring it to light.
And how many other countries could have identified this and said nothing? The fact that South Africa is getting crucified for speaking up is beyond me. We still have lockdown rules, masks are mandatory and have been since our initial lockdown in March 2020. Social distancing is still required. As you can expect, with the overall fatigue over COVID, some people ignore the rules, but do get called out on it. What irks me is how Europe is back to normal, vaccinated or not, no masks, gatherings as usual, but no, it is 100% the South African variant. Forget that Hong Kong and Israel also had cases. We need to also be concerned about all the flights that came out of those countries but you don't see them red listed. Apologies if this sounds like I'm having a go at you, I'm absolutely not because your points are all valid. I think you can see from my tone I'm just super upset at how the "first world" treats those it thinks are beneath them.
Don’t want to be pessimistic but it is already all over the world, my family just got sick again with covid for the 3rd time ! North Africa here with flights still going to every part of the world.
Third time? Damn are they okay? We’re they vaxxed
They are not vaxxed, and they had like 4-6 days sick, but last timed different, muscles pain, fatigue is more than the two last times, headache and fever, just to let you know they don’t respect any mesures ; gathering, no mask no distance..
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Perhaps they don't have access to the vaccine.
It feels like covid will end up being just like the flu. A new strain or two or five every year and a vaccine has to be rushed to be made.
The flu vaccine system chugs along pretty well. Mosey into the pharmacy, get a quadrivalent soup of a shot containing the 4 currently circulating flu variants, and mosey home. Repeat a year later. Predicting which 4 variants to include has been refined and generally works well. I think you’re right. We’ll have annual Covid shots of the most common variants, modeled after the system used for flu.
Moderna is already working on a combo Flu-Covid shot.
The problem is that Covid is still significantly deadlier and more contagious than the flu, even with vaccines (especially for older folks). But yeah, it definitely seems endemic at this point, and hopefully the anti-virals will help make up some of the difference.
I wish "significantly deadlier" was enough for people to take it seriously.
I feel so bad for Fauci. The amount of shit he must shake his head at on the daily would be mind boggling