Omicron variant

Forget Omicron,
forget deer antlers,
give me all the squirrels from Ontario,
man, what a mess,
it's like some old-school sorcerer
from the drums of Darkwood,
was things really better back when Titus was in charge?!

Just wait until peak season hits... that's when every single Omicron, Omega, and Sigma variant will decide to make its grand entrance into the States.
But honestly, there’s no need to panic; as long as the tourists are around, the virus clearly has too much respect for the vacation vibes to ruin anyone's summer.

Honestly, nature is just playing games with us at this point.
Word is we'll know more in three weeks.

It’s quite amusing how we see ten cases pop up globally and suddenly everyone is an expert on who the virus targets and how dangerous it actually is. Yet, nobody is calling for a lockdown anymore. I just read an article speculating about how many cases China would have seen if they had behaved like Europe, but strangely, no one thought to write an article suggesting that if Europe and the rest of the world had acted like China did back then, we wouldn't even be dealing with this mess today. But of course, that’s unthinkable... the economy would have collapsed, or so they say, even though it clearly hasn't yet.

Whether Omicron hits harder than Alpha, Delta, or that first strain from Wuhan—honestly, it’s almost beside the point. What we’re actually waiting on is the data regarding how effectively it bypasses existing immunity, whether you got your shots or already fought it off.

If it turns out to be successful at dodging those defenses, it means the potential pool of susceptible people just got a whole lot larger...

Richard Campbell3 said:It’s quite amusing how we see ten cases pop up globally and suddenly everyone is an expert on who the virus targets and how dangerous it actually is. Yet, nobody is calling for a lockdown anymore. I just read an article speculating about how many cases China would have seen if they had behaved like Europe, but strangely, no one thought to write an article suggesting that if Europe and the rest of the world had acted like China did back then, we wouldn't even be dealing with this mess today. But of course, that’s unthinkable... the economy would have collapsed, or so they say, even though it clearly hasn't yet.

Everyone seems to be ignoring the very likely possibility that the Far East might possess some level of partial immunity to this virus, simply because their population has clearly encountered a similar strain in the recent past. Think back to the last WHO outbreak.

If Europe and the USA had implemented the exact same strategies as China, God knows what the fallout would have been. Shutting down such a massive territory would undoubtedly be far more devastating than the current disorganized mess we're dealing with, primarily because you wouldn't be able to maintain the distribution chains for essential goods and services—which, ironically, would just create more opportunities for the virus to spread further.

Joseph Evans40 said:Just wait until peak season hits... that's when every single Omicron, Omega, and Sigma variant will decide to make its grand entrance into the States.
But honestly, there’s no need to panic; as long as the tourists are around, the virus clearly has too much respect for the vacation vibes to ruin anyone's summer.

What "bad season"? It'll be here in two or three weeks if it hasn't already!

The big shots over at the WHO are out here claiming Omicron is some kind of monster that’ll leave people wrecked

Honestly, I’d love to find even one local doc or researcher willing to go against the grain on this one. But let's be real, good luck with that...

Gerald Chavez7 said:Whether Omicron hits harder than Alpha, Delta, or that first strain from Wuhan—honestly, it’s almost beside the point. What we’re actually waiting on is the data regarding how effectively it bypasses existing immunity, whether you got your shots or already fought it off.

If it turns out to be successful at dodging those defenses, it means the potential pool of susceptible people just got a whole lot larger...

Nobody's attacking anyone here. Why act like this? You clearly don't know the quote.

rowdyranger44 said:Everyone seems to be ignoring the very likely possibility that the Far East might possess some level of partial immunity to this virus, simply because their population has clearly encountered a similar strain in the recent past. Think back to the last WHO outbreak.

If Europe and the USA had implemented the exact same strategies as China, God knows what the fallout would have been. Shutting down such a massive territory would undoubtedly be far more devastating than the current disorganized mess we're dealing with, primarily because you wouldn't be able to maintain the distribution chains for essential goods and services—which, ironically, would just create more opportunities for the virus to spread further.

There’s an explanation, but this moderator can't even handle a quote.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32936832/

The virus enters the cell via the ACE2 receptor.

It was shown that the human Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor of recent coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and variation in this gene may affect the susceptibility of a population. Therefore, we have analysed the sequence data of ACE2 among 393 samples worldwide, focusing on South Asia.

Z_K Clear enough now? Just use your head. It’s infuriating when people pretend to be stupid.

Can you actually read an article and process it without spiraling straight into some conspiracy theory? It must be absolutely exhausting just trying to follow the news these days...

Benjamin Brooks2 said:Nobody's attacking anyone here. Why act like this? You clearly don't know the quote.

There’s an explanation, but this moderator can't even handle a quote.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32936832/

The virus enters the cell via the ACE2 receptor.

It was shown that the human Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor of recent coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and variation in this gene may affect the susceptibility of a population. Therefore, we have analysed the sequence data of ACE2 among 393 samples worldwide, focusing on South Asia.

Z_K Clear enough now? Just use your head. It’s infuriating when people pretend to be stupid.

So, we're starting with that article from India.
Submitted: April 27, 2020; Accepted: August 12, 2020; Published: September 16, 2020

It stands to reason, then, that within... South AsiansIt looks like the way certain hosts react to SARS-CoV-2 actually leans much closer to the patterns seen in East or Southeast Asians rather than what we see in Europeans or Americans.

we're talking about the Indian subcontinent here.

And then, following all that, India ends up hitting the highest mortality rate in the world—in absolute numbers, at least. It's because they're already immune...

Gerald Chavez7 said:Can you actually read an article and process it without spiraling straight into some conspiracy theory? It must be absolutely exhausting just trying to follow the news these days...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...05580820301072

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0258/v2

So apparently science is just a conspiracy theory to you.

If you took religion class instead of biology, I guess how a virus enters a cell is just "mystery" to you.

It uses ACE2 receptors, but hey, that's a conspiracy too, right?

The receptors vary, oh no, aliens are attacking us.🍿

Gerald Chavez7 said:Can you actually read an article and process it without spiraling straight into some conspiracy theory? It must be absolutely exhausting just trying to follow the news these days...

Nah, I can't, because honestly, there’s already more than enough dirt out there about how crooked the WHO is and all those scandals they keep getting dragged into.

It’s kind of like asking if I can read a press release without bias when the Republican Party is busy bragging about how they single-handedly saved the American economy.
I just can't, man, since there's plenty of evidence showing they're basically a dangerous group acting like a criminal enterprise.

Gerald Chavez7 said:So, we're starting with that article from India.
Submitted: April 27, 2020; Accepted: August 12, 2020; Published: September 16, 2020

It stands to reason, then, that within... South AsiansIt looks like the way certain hosts react to SARS-CoV-2 actually leans much closer to the patterns seen in East or Southeast Asians rather than what we see in Europeans or Americans.

we're talking about the Indian subcontinent here.

And then, following all that, India ends up hitting the highest mortality rate in the world—in absolute numbers, at least. It's because they're already immune...

Meanwhile, in China, they’ve wrapped up all their business and reported somewhere between Rwanda and the Maldives just 98,762 cases to this day...

There has to be something in their immunity; it's simply impossible to have such low infection rates in the Far East while we're all essentially using the same measures. That is, except for China, where you can't trust a single official figure anymore.

...we paired up an analysis of ACE2 coding variants across various groups with computational chemistry models to see how they impact the SARS-CoV-2/ACE2 interaction. The ACE2-K26R variant—which shows up most often in the Ashkenazi Jewish population —actually weakened the SARS-CoV-2/ACE2 electrostatic attraction. On the flip side, ACE2-I468V, R219C, K341R, D206G, and G211R all boosted the electrostatic attraction; listed here from weakest to strongest binding.

Any Ashkenaz representatives in here? 😁

Wouldn't it be way more cost-effective and actually logical to just implement quarantine protocols at the airports instead of dragging us all back into general lockdowns? It feels like Israel is the only one handling this situation with any real maturity right now. ☕

How does it even make sense that there are Omicron variants popping up in Australia when you can't even get in or out of the country without being vaccinated? It's a total head-scratcher.

Rachel Allen55 said:How does it even make sense that there are Omicron variants popping up in Australia when you can't even get in or out of the country without being vaccinated? It's a total head-scratcher.

Even if we assume that's the case, look at the logistics. It is significantly easier to manage contact tracing within a smaller, more contained population than it is when you have thousands of people landing daily from high-risk areas via major international hubs. Risk management is never going to be perfect—it never will be—but these measures help streamline the process and, frankly, they are what keeps the local economy from completely cratering.

rowdyranger44 said:Meanwhile, in China, they’ve wrapped up all their business and reported somewhere between Rwanda and the Maldives just 98,762 cases to this day...

There has to be something in their immunity; it's simply impossible to have such low infection rates in the Far East while we're all essentially using the same measures. That is, except for China, where you can't trust a single official figure anymore.

And you don't even get the quote right—it's the ACE2 receptor in humans



That's how the virus enters the cell. You can see in the image that these Jewish folks are highlighted in red

Nathan Evans78 said:Even if we assume that's the case, look at the logistics. It is significantly easier to manage contact tracing within a smaller, more contained population than it is when you have thousands of people landing daily from high-risk areas via major international hubs. Risk management is never going to be perfect—it never will be—but these measures help streamline the process and, frankly, they are what keeps the local economy from completely cratering.

That's not the point—it's about the fact that making vaccination a requirement was a federal decision.