The Omicron variant

@deholleboom wrote

Viruses do not evolve to become less harmful; our immune systems develop to make them less harmful.

Why would you expect immunity from Omicron infection to be less useful against Omicron and its future variants than a vaccine developed several variants ago?

I don't think I'm advocating skipping a booster and getting infected, but boosters are not available to my age group (40s) yet AFAIK so my choices are purely behavioural: catch it deliberately and then be protected in the new year, or hide from it and then hope antigen tests work before I see vulnerable parents in January.

Agree with a lot of this, but why mention the 20 - 40 year olds when they, in general, are not at threat from the virus. And kids are certainly not susceptible. As another poster said, maybe it's the old, infirm, and immunocompromised that need to heed the abundance of caution advice and stay at home for the festive period.

I assumed this to be the case too (albeit I had never once considered it prior to all this !), but there was a seemingly reputable piece posted on one of the threads here reasonably recently, suggesting that viruses always evolving to be less harmful was a bit of a myth apparently. The jist was that its often the case but doesn't necessarily follow. I'm struggling to find the actual post, but it was an interesting piece.

It might be useful for people to dive in a little deeper into the way viruses behave. What we can summise is that a virus appears somewhere and doesnt raise its head above the water until through variation it starts spreading to more people. It becomes more virulent and people start to have symptoms which indicates it has already been going around for some time. More spread, more mutations and finally reaching its peak effectiveness both through higher, faster transmissability, replication and improved cell invation. We think Delta is that peak. Omicron seems to be more transmissable but so far less severe though there is an amount of uncertainty about that. If it is more transmissable AND more virulent we are in trouble but i think we would have already seen that happening.

It is true that our immune systems are better coping with virus variants due to vaccination and immunity through prior infections so the effective mutations have to find a way around it to spread otherwise they die. A variant is in competition with other variants and we can see the Darwinian selection taking place usually resulting in a milder variant form as a slightly stinky fellow traveller over time. So, in a way we COULD say that our immune systems have an influence on variants by providing a hurdle for them to try and jump over, or around..

Now, on the subject of less vs more harmful the valid argument has been made that, while a variant might be less harmful to each individual, due to a higher number of infected people the spread will be so big that it actually becomes more harmful by the sheer numbers involved. That is the fear at the moment. However, that equation is quite complex with multi variables in play. Nobody really knows. Not the best virologists nor any other scientist working in the field. We will know or better said have better information..in hindsight.

The efficacy and the need for restrictions is a related but different matter with even more complex equations. A bit like the climate change debate..

The alpha (Kent) variant had the s-gene thing. So we were able to track it.

Delta didn't, so we were able to track it because the alpha variant was dominant when Delta first arrived.

And now we're able to track omicron because Delta didn't have the s-gene dropout but omicron does.

In this one small area of the pandemic, we've been quite lucky. Thank you Jesus.

'We didn't have this with Delta, so it's really helpful.'

We did actually have it with Delta, but the other way around.

Alpha was also an S-gene dropout variant. So when Alpha was being replaced by Delta (which isn't S-gene dropout), this was detectable in the same way.

A specific PCR test (TaqPath) checks for three parts of the virus, one being on the spike (S gene). If the result is positive for the two other parts but negative for the S gene, this a positive test with S gene dropout/failure.

We've been fortunate to have been able to track the growth of variants due to the sequence they emerged in.

Maybe you should be slower with the "nonsense" comments, Micky. It's quite unpleasant.

I just feel to say we are lucky is over the top. Omicron still came and took over regardless of tracking it.

Nah, I could only spread it to my household, and they're going nowhere over Christmas either.

Of course this sort of calculus is what everyone is doing anyway. We're long past people following generic public health advice.

At current rate, I think by Christmas day there should be 25 to 30 million people with it in the UK. And the entire Population by new year's eve.

The figures are all over the place to be fair, especially as in how many cases there currently are. But very loosely based it on doubling in under two days , which appears to be what's happening..

Not sure omicron spread works exactly like the wheat and chessboard puzzle

78,000 cases in the UK today.

The English have already suspended the 15-minute wait time. Considering how bad the country is gonna be with self isolation, I have a feeling they’re just going to go into lockdown out of lack of staff for anything. Self isolation scrapped for extremely essential services like electricity, gas, water services etc, and any vulnerable people told to stay home at all costs.

Trying to get my head around this. If this is just going to lead to exponential growth, like the numbers Norway were mentioning yesterday (90,000 to 300,000 a day in country of similar size to us), there's no point in doing anything restriction-wise, is there? We just let it run through and keep our fingers crossed that it really is a lot, and I mean a lot, milder. Hospitals just deal with whoever they can as best they can - it'll potentially be awful for a month. Hospitals will need to be Covid only (certainly nothing elective) as far as that is possible. We will need private hospital capacity. But at 90K to 300k a day its got to pass quickly, correct? I mean in a couple of weeks. And surely with vaccines and prior disease, not everyone will get infected? Is this how people see it playing out or is there still a basis for hope this isn't as transmissible as I'm suggesting. I would love if I am talking through my hoop btw....