The Omicron variant

Akrasia · 04-12-2021 1:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268042#Comment_118268042

From the Munster rugby's experience, you could all test negative on Saturday from a test taken on Friday, and then a quarter of the group test positive on Saturday. PCR tests are a snapshot in time, they're not a silver bullet. That's why MHQs were introduced

ACitizenErased · 04-12-2021 1:18pm

Really interesting studies starting to emerge. One suggests that the virus is after inheriting a feature of the common cold through co-infection.

NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 likely acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from another virus - possibly one that causes the common cold - present in the same infected cells, according to researchers.

This genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome, researchers said.

This could mean the virus transmits more easily, while only causing mild or asymptomatic disease. Scientists do not yet know whether Omicron is more infectious than other variants, whether it causes more severe disease or whether it will overtake Delta as the most prevalent variant. It may take several weeks to get answers to these questions.

Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-variant-may-have-picked-up-piece-common-cold-virus-2021-12-03/

Link to study: https://osf.io/f7txy/

TonyMaloney · 04-12-2021 1:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268094#Comment_118268094

Fingers crossed, but there's hundreds of people going to hospital every day in SA with cold symptoms if that's the case

Akrasia · 04-12-2021 1:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268143#Comment_118268143

Becoming as ubiquitous as the common cold but as deadly as influenza or covid would be very bad

ACitizenErased · 04-12-2021 1:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268143#Comment_118268143

Hundreds of unvaccinated people. No reason to suggest that would happen in western Europe.

Wibbs · 04-12-2021 1:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268094#Comment_118268094

Fair play for including the original study as well as the media report(and one from a decent source). Few enough do.

discostu1 · 04-12-2021 2:19pm

Firstly I have no great expertise in this area ,Luke O'Neill was on Brendan O'Connor this morning and this is my idiot take.If someone could put up the clip it would be interesting.So as ACE said and Luke confirmed Omicron has sort of grabbed a bit of the common cold, in theory that's a good thing but Luke was strong on saying we need much more data.I think he also said and I may have this wrong that when young kids have a sniffle/cough they are now brought to hospital for observation and then released a few hour later. That is part of the hospitalization figure, again I might have this wrong but worth a listen

Lumen · 04-12-2021 2:32pm

This is decent.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n24/rupert-beale/on-omicron?s=09

Author's Twitter profile

https://twitter.com/bealelab

ACitizenErased · 04-12-2021 4:24pm

The Tshwane district (including the city of Pretoria) have released an update on the South African Medical Research Council's website on the state of the hospital situation in the district.

They've noted that the majority of admissions are for non-COVID related matters and patients are asymptomatically testing for COVID on arrival. Just 20% of patients are declared as having 'COVID Pneumonia'. Note small numbers, however it's interesting nonetheless.

QUOTE:

The main observation that we have made over the last two weeks is that the majority of patients in the COVID wards have not been oxygen dependent. SARS-CoV-2 has been an incidental finding in patients that were admitted to the hospital for another medical, surgical or obstetric reason.

A snapshot of 42 patients in the ward on 2 December 2021 reveals that 29 (70%) are not oxygen dependent. These patients are saturating well on room air and do not present with any respiratory symptoms. These are the patients that we would call ‘incidental COVID admissions’, having had another medical or surgical reason for admission. Thirteen (13) patients are dependent on supplemental oxygen of which nine (21%) have a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia based on a combination of symptoms, clinical signs, CXR and inflammatory markers. All are being prescribed steroids as the mainstay of therapy. The remaining 4 patients are on oxygen for other medical reasons (2 previously on home oxygen, 1 in heart failure and 1 with a confirmed diagnosis of Pneumocystis Pneumonia).

This is a picture that has not been seen in previous waves. In the beginning of all three previous waves and throughout the course of these waves, there has always only been a sprinkling of patients on room air in the COVID ward and these patients have usually been in the recovery phase waiting for the resolution of a co-morbidity prior to discharge. The COVID ward was recognizable by the majority of patients being on some form of oxygen supplementation with the incessant sound of high flow nasal oxygen machines, or beeping ventilator alarms.

There are only 4 patients in high care and one in the ICU. The numbers of patients in high care on double oxygen, High Flow Nasal Oxygen or non-invasive ventilation (NIV) were noticeably higher in previous waves. This is anecdotal but confirmed by numerous clinicians who have previously worked in the COVID wards in the hospital complex.

Of 38 adults in the COVID wards on 2 December 2021, 6 were vaccinated, 24 were unvaccinated and 8 had unknown vaccination status. Of 9 patients with COVID pneumonia 8 are unvaccinated, 1 is a child. Only a single patient on oxygen was fully vaccinated but the reason for the oxygen was Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Link to report: https://www.samrc.ac.za/news/tshwane-district-omicron-variant-patient-profile-early-features

wadacrack · 04-12-2021 4:31pm

Think Omicron will be a blessing in disguise. Extremely contagious which should mean that restrictions will be a waste of time. Early reports that its just causing mild symptoms are more likely to be true. We have a tendency to overestimate how dangerous a new pathogen is. At one stage early in China it looked like the CFR was near 10 %. Anecdotal reports that's its mild is very encouraging. The positivity rates in SA indicate that cases are probably 5 times higher. Its probably been their far longer than most scientists realise also. A virus is likely to mutate to a less virulent form ie. like the Spanish flu.

Wibbs · 04-12-2021 5:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268722#Comment_118268722

Spanish flu didn't really mutate to a less virulent form. It started out as a less virulent form in the first wave, then came back a right evil bugger. One strong hypothesis is that the Great War was the catalyst for this. In most pandemics those with a more dangerous mutation get much sicker and stay home so infect fewer people. Those with milder mutations go out in the world and spread the milder version. Over time the milder one wins. In 1918 there was the war. Soldiers at the front who got sick but were still upright and functioning stayed at their posts(mild variant), those who were so ill as to be useless for fighting(dangerous variant) and the sicker they were the most likely they were shipped off to field hospitals where they spread the nasty variant and from there to the world. Those who caught the mild first wave version were immune to the second wave, those who didn't suffered. After 18 months to two years the virus ran out of hosts to infect as the population exposed to it had recovered so were immune or died and that's why it died out. Looking back through history pandemics on average seem to span eighteen months to two year periods on average. Now you do see longer "plagues" but they're usually examples of it spreading across large areas in times of much slower travel. In single areas the two years thing tends to hold. It seems it takes that long to run through a population leaving the now recovered immune or the dead. That was before vaccines came into play of course.

The problem with the current pox is that antibody immunity wanes in both the vaccinated and the recovered so you get more breakthrough infections and constant spreading. Hopefully immune system memory holds for longer and it looks like it does*, so while people will still get infected and spread the pox the numbers of those who get seriously ill and/or die which stresses the health services will drop right off, and we appear to be seeing that too. Take Omricon now. Loads of positive cases, but has anyone died from it so far? Has anybody ended up in ICU so far?

My personal prediction and I'm musing here to be fair; what could well happen(for the vaccinated and the already recovered) is that it will always be around and we will all continue to be exposed to it mostly on a seasonal basis like colds and flu, some will get mildly ill, some may not even notice, but serious illness and death will fall to flu levels or below and the virus itself could act as the annual booster for the wider population. Leaving those with underlying health problems and advanced age in need of actual boosters. Again much like flu.

*way back in early/mid 2020 on the forum when strong data showed current smokers had a completely unexpected smaller proportion of cases in hospital, there was much scratching of heads. They should be among the worst affected for obvious reasons, and were, if they ended up in hospital. But fewer did in the first place. There was talk of nictotine damping down the immune system so it didn't kill the person from cytokine storms and the like. French doctors even trialled nicotine patches in health workers to see if it had any effect.

My thought at the time was that it was because smokers are indeed more likely to get respiratory infections that more of them compared to non smokers had been exposed to a mild "bug going around", a Virus X, in previous years that by coincidence offered some latent immune system protection against this pox. This would also explain why so many people had asymptomatic infections while others got ill. They too had been exposed to this Virus X, or their immune systems were better at remembering it, that had gone around in the last few years. Smokers were just more likely to have been. I never followed this up mind you.

Lumen · 04-12-2021 6:09pm

From the article I posted earlier...

Might Omicron be ‘milder’? There’s no reason to think so. Viruses evolve to optimise transmission within a population. For viruses that are not immediately lethal to their hosts, there is no evidence that they evolve to become less pathogenic. Immunity, acquired by vaccination or infection, makes people less likely to become severely unwell if they are infected again. If a virus appears to become ‘milder’, it’s usually because of partial immunity in previously infected or vaccinated individuals. Most of the South African population has been either previously infected or vaccinated: reports claiming that most Omicron cases are ‘mild’ reflect this, and we cannot yet infer anything useful about the intrinsic ability of the virus to cause disease. Cases in Gauteng have risen rapidly, and so have hospitalisations. This is very early in the Omicron wave; deaths will follow. We can hope the rates will be lower than expected, or we can fear they will be higher – but neither hope nor fear has any rational basis at this point.

corkie · 04-12-2021 9:52pm

TOTAL GLOBAL CASES 769 (~48,747)

South Africa 227 (~48,619)

UK 160

Zimbabwe 50

Ghana 33

United States 29

https://twitter.com/istsupsan/status/1467161616332513286

ginoginelli · 04-12-2021 11:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118268845#Comment_118268845

I'm not sure there was any strong data on smokers being of less risk. The most prominent study on smokers and covid which featured in the European respiratory journal was found to be financed by tobacco companies and subsequently withdrawn.

The up to date science and medical opinion that I've seen points to an elevated risk of severe infection and complication if you are a smoker.