Omicron variant

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).

Gerald Chavez7 said: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).

We all fixate on the positivity rate, but let’s be real: if it stays under 40%, nobody actually gives a damn.😁

Do you honestly think everything’s just gonna work out even if we all decide to go rogue and burn it all down?

#skepticsquad ?

...if you’re being serious, then yeah—that's all there is to it.

coastalmarlin64 said:Do you honestly think everything’s just gonna work out even if we all decide to go rogue and burn it all down?

Give me a break. They're expecting perfectly healthy people to get tested twice a week. No symptoms at all!
How is this madness supposed to end under these rules?

coastalmarlin64 said:Do you honestly think everything’s just gonna work out even if we all decide to go rogue and burn it all down?

Exactly. There is a massive chance this just settles into an endemic state. We saw this exact same pattern play out with COVID-19.

The US hit 78k yesterday. WHO 🙏🙏

Grace Edwards said:Give me a break. They're expecting perfectly healthy people to get tested twice a week. No symptoms at all!
How is this madness supposed to end under these rules?

That’s not really an argument. You still get tested for HIV or hepatitis even when you feel "healthy." Or rather, when there aren't any symptoms...

Twice a week? As some kind of requirement for school, work, or even just traveling?

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...12.14.472630v1

Nine different antibody treatments—including Trump’s so-called "wonder drug" Remdesivir—are basically useless against Omicron... Great. It might slightly nudge the IFR (for those without immunity—whether from vaccines, previous infection, or both), but that's about it.

Can we just say the Omicron variant basically made all the extra shots pointless—like, there’s no real way to justify why they even started this whole thing in the first place?
Or maybe it's just people tripping because they already took two doses... they turned into anti-vaxxers overnight after being right there in the front lines.

Gerald Chavez7 said: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.

Gerald Chavez7 said: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.

The variant has been circulating in the States for weeks now. Last time I checked, nobody was even hitting the hospital, let alone ending up on a ventilator or dead. It’s not even close to being identical.
These are official figures. Any doom-and-gloom predictions from some neighborhood fortune teller just look like a calculated attempt to stir up panic.

Gerald Chavez7 said:#skepticsquad ?

...if you’re being serious, then yeah—that's all there is to it.

#teamoptimist 😁

After which dose?

coastalmarlin64 said:Do you honestly think everything’s just gonna work out even if we all decide to go rogue and burn it all down?

It’s never going to truly disappear. Eventually, the virus might mellow out so it acts more like the seasonal flu—which still takes lives, sure, but nowhere near the level we're seeing right now.

The virus is going to stick around even after everyone has been vaccinated or recovered...

frozenraven22 said:Those who survive will have plenty to talk about. 😁

That potential 1% daily infection rate scares the hell out of me too. 🙄

God willing, Omicron turns out to be nothing more than a common cold.🎉

That 1% figure is just totally insane. I mean, it might be possible, but it's crazy! It feels like we're looking at either the virus just collapsing and vanishing, or the end of humanity. It's either us or it. 😬

So far in the EU, maybe 80% to over 90% of the population has some kind of immunity against this thing. If the reinfection rate is sitting around 50% (based on data from South Africa), then I guess Europe is already starting with about 40% immunity.
If herd immunity hits 70-80% and this junk keeps spreading at a crazy speed—maybe not 1% a day, but even 0.1% is super fast—it'll probably just burn itself out in a month or two. It'll run out of hosts and disappear. Unless, of course, it mutates.🕺

Sure, you're thinking about it, but given this reinfection rate—and what looks like an inherently higher level of contagiousness—we’re looking at needing over 90%, not just 70-80%... which doesn't really change the big picture anyway, it just means we won't be totally clear by March 15th, but maybe by April 15th instead. 🕺

Lambda is going to be a total nightmare.
This Omicron thing feels like some weird middle-ground variant, basically just preparing for the end of pandemics.

Cheers,

boldotter2 said:That 1% figure is just totally insane. I mean, it might be possible, but it's crazy! It feels like we're looking at either the virus just collapsing and vanishing, or the end of humanity. It's either us or it. 😬

So far in the EU, maybe 80% to over 90% of the population has some kind of immunity against this thing. If the reinfection rate is sitting around 50% (based on data from South Africa), then I guess Europe is already starting with about 40% immunity.
If herd immunity hits 70-80% and this junk keeps spreading at a crazy speed—maybe not 1% a day, but even 0.1% is super fast—it'll probably just burn itself out in a month or two. It'll run out of hosts and disappear. Unless, of course, it mutates.🕺

Provided it doesn't mutate!

Why do you think it loves mutating so much instead of just doing its job quietly in peace?

Jesse Hughes6 said:Twice a week? As some kind of requirement for school, work, or even just traveling?

Whatever. We can just agree to disagree on this one.

mellownomad7 said:Lambda is going to be a total nightmare.
This Omicron thing feels like some weird middle-ground variant, basically just preparing for the end of pandemics.

Cheers,

Preparing for the end of pandemics.