As far as the US goes, we know it’s capped at maybe 0.3% of the population daily—mostly because we've never actually pushed past 14,000 tests at once 😉
...though, let's be real, even the UK, France, and Germany will eventually hit their testing limits (which is why keeping an eye on the positivity rate is going to be absolutely critical).
frozenraven22 said:Looking at the bigger picture over a longer timeline, the reality remains unchanged: absolutely everyone is going to be exposed, whether through infection or vaccination. The real devil is in the details—specifically, the timing and the speed of this rollout.
It looks like we’ll hit herd immunity or transition to an endemic state by this summer. What the actual cost of this massive, rapid wave of exposure will be? I don't think anyone truly knows yet (well, except for Bakić and Lauc, since they apparently have all the answers).
Yeah, honestly? Everyone can stop worrying about "avoiding" the virus... I mean, :Lauc: I think we aren't just going to be close to it, we're going to be living with it. 🧐
Some projections for Western countries are looking at up to 1% of the population being infected daily... With a peak like that, we'll be through the worst of it by May...
frozenraven22 said:Looking at the bigger picture over a longer timeline, the reality remains unchanged: absolutely everyone is going to be exposed, whether through infection or vaccination. The real devil is in the details—specifically, the timing and the speed of this rollout.
It looks like we’ll hit herd immunity or transition to an endemic state by this summer. What the actual cost of this massive, rapid wave of exposure will be? I don't think anyone truly knows yet (well, except for Bakić and Lauc, since they apparently have all the answers).
Yeah, I think anyone hoping to dodge the virus entirely can kiss that idea goodbye... If you ask me, 🙏we won't just be bumping up against it; we'll be living with it.
Some projections for Western countries are looking at daily infection rates hitting up to 1% of the population... With a peak like that, everything will likely wrap up by May...
Omicron is spreading incredibly fast—everyone’s probably going to catch it at some point. Honestly, if you've been vaccinated or already had it, you should be fine (it'll likely be a milder version anyway), while those who haven't had either will just deal with it exactly like everything else we've seen so far.
It looks like Omicron has quite a few "old" ancestors under its belt—it’s actually pretty similar to the original Wuhan strain, which people in the US often refer to as the wild-type.
You’re missing the point—and honestly, so are you. Monsanto actually emerged back in the fall of 2020, over in the United Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-C...iant#Detection
The original Wuhan virus wasn't the Monsanto strain...
And what’s the average window—for the general population, anyway—between testing positive and death? It's about 15 to 20 days. So, we should probably start seeing the actual impact over in the UK somewhere toward the end of next week.
"Pushing it"... In the US, there's still plenty of people out there who haven't taken a single dose.
Clear messaging and actual vaccine availability make a difference... By the way, boosters are rolling out pretty fast over in the West. Take Belgium, for example—with a population of 11 million, they're hitting 500,000 doses a week. Even the 75-84 age group is already at 80% for their booster.
1) First off, looking at the detailed report out of South Africa—which isn't exactly some third-world nation struggling with malnutrition issues—it mentions 70% efficacy against severe disease (severe—likely meaning hospitalization or death) when you've had two doses of Pfizer. Honestly, I’d bet the numbers in the US will be lower, mostly because our vaccination rollout happened much earlier (most people were done between March and July). If I had to make a conservative guess, I’d say we're looking at maybe 50% efficacy against the severe stuff. As for reinfection? I expect practically zero protection from just two doses here in the States—maybe 20-30% at most.
2) I still think age remains the dominant factor in the data structure. It’s not like South Africa is a developing nation where they're dealing with widespread malnutrition issues.
A staggering 75% of Omicron cases are among those fully vaccinated, compared to 49% during the Delta wave. Given that overall vaccination rates are hovering around 80%, Omicron basically treats the vaccine as invisible when it comes to symptomatic illness.
Plus, the hospitalization rate is higher (check table 6).
Jar is seeing record case numbers—higher than any previous wave—and growth is skyrocketing, yet Z. Europa isn't even keeping pace; it’s actually seen a slight stagnation over the last few weeks.
Regardless of what the sequencing shows, just looking at total testing volume and how these waves move, something would have been detected if it had surfaced in Europe first.
Matthew Jackson2 said:Just because it was first detected in one spot doesn't mean that's necessarily where it crawled out of. It was later identified in samples from across Europe that had been taken much earlier.
That said, even if it did originate right there, I’d say your level of anxiety is roughly comparable to worrying about a random meteor hitting your house.
Second, this thing spreads three to four times faster than Delta. Even worse, unlike previous variants, it seems it's spreading through ventilation systems too—think airplanes, ships, office buildings, malls—which has been confirmed by the relevant authorities in the European Union and the UK. You have people who were vaccinated and tested boarding a plane, maintaining distance, testing negative upon landing, and then developing full-blown symptoms just two or three days later.
But wait, was every single vaccinated person actually tested? And was the specific test they used even capable of detecting this particular strain?
Look, we already know that vaccinated individuals are far more susceptible to Omicron than they were to Delta, so if not everyone was tested, or if the tests themselves couldn't catch Omicron, that offers a much more logical explanation than suggesting the virus is somehow fundamentally changing its physical particle properties. The coronavirus spreads via aerosols, which means any filter capable of blocking Delta should inherently block Omicron, because the virus resides in droplets of essentially the same size regardless of the strain.
Of course, that assumes the filter was functioning correctly in the first place. If it wasn't, then a single infected person could be responsible for a massive outbreak.
Third, the best example comes from Norway, where at a Christmas party for about a hundred people, over eighty of them caught Omicron. Every single one of them was vaccinated and perfectly healthy until that moment. This proves the virus is successfully bypassing the efficacy of the vaccines. Being vaccinated versus unvaccinated is effectively the same thing here.
They aren't shutting down the UK for no reason... they know the danger is real and that anything could happen.
And remember, when we were all warning that the emergence of a variant like this was inevitable, we were just dismissed as conspiracy theorists...
Hold on, hold on, hold on—are you actually claiming Omicron emerged in a vaccinated Norway?
Since we're playing the "we warned you" game—Africa has been cited for at least six months as the perfect breeding ground for new variants due to low vaccination rates. Do I really need to go hunting for links to prove that?
The honest truth is we still don't know how much weight intrinsically carries compared to Delta. In other words—it’s probably milder if you're looking at reinfections (since the patient actually has some sort of immune response to work with)—but that doesn't mean it's any less dangerous for people who haven't had it yet. Actually, it doesn't even seem likely that it would be.
Just one more reason to brace for the January blues... I don't see this becoming the dominant strain in America throughout 2021, though it might make its move in January...
On a different note, has anyone stumbled upon research regarding re-infection rates in South Africa based on when the initial infection occurred? Basically—does having caught it earlier (during their first wave back in the Spring of 2020) actually increase the risk of getting it again, or not?
bluepuma9 said:Hospitalizations in California have shot up by 330% over just the last two weeks. This is the same state where Omicron first popped up, and let's not forget they have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. They’re still pushing the narrative that cases are milder than previous variants, but if that's true, I don't get why people are flooding the hospitals at this rate.
The CDC has a pretty clear site, if you can actually make sense of it.
Andrew Murphy5 said:Kolarić says they're tweaking the PCR tests to catch this new strain🤦
You want to know why he’s making that claim? It’s because once Omicron shows up, you can catch it with a standard PCR test anyway—there's a deficiency in the S gene, so there's no real need for a full-blown genetic analysis.
