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It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly.
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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better.
On November 27 2021 00:17 Nebuchad wrote: I think they used Wikipedia to determine how many fifa players died of cardiac arrests the years prior and if you use better data there's no increase.
You have to understand that this kind of stuff isn't made to look credible, it's not a rational discussion that we're having. Apparently with this new south african strain, if it becomes a huge problem the main plan is to go with "ah the vaccine made this stronger and that's why it's killing us, it's your fault". None of them actually believe that this is true. It's not an argument, they just hate us and don't want to think about it.
I don't know if this new variant exists because of the vaccines. But either way the vaccines will be less effective. And there wont be a booster that will solve this for the same reasons that there wasnt a booster for delta.
Only good possibility would be this variant being less deadly.
What do you mean no booster for Delta? The vaccine is still effective vs Delta and Delta is the reason people are getting boosters.
Its not a on off thing, there is tons of room between working and not working. The vaccine is effective against delta, having it makes you 11x better off and makes society better off because the people who do get are less contagious for less time.
If vaccines made mutations worse why do the mutations and variants happen in places with low (or previously no) vaccination rates?
Why is critical thinking so hard?
And to that really dumb Fifa theory. You really think all the owners would be pushing for their players, who they are paying 100 of millions if not billions of salaries to play, would risk that when they have to pay them whether or not they are fit to play? Its just such a bad conspiracy.
Not only that. Delta-specific boosters have been undergoing clinical trials since August. Their efficacy is so far not better than a 3rd shot of the old vaccine.
On November 27 2021 00:00 WombaT wrote: I’m seeing this crop up, what’s the hypothesis here that these players are adversely reacting to vaccines?
It’s quite a small increase in quite a large sample. So there’s that. To my knowledge, and to such a degree as there’s privacy involved, elite level footballers aren’t vaccinated at the rate of the genera population, although this may have changed since the podcast I listened to with their numbers was quite some time ago.
One would assume that we’d see bigger spikes in cardiac problems across the wider population, to my knowledge this is not the case, but I’ve not seen numbers disproving or making a case for that either way.
To boot there seems a lot of misinformation swirling around, for example the most high profile public cardiac arrest I can think of in Christian Eriksen did not, as some claim and as far as I can ascertain have the vaccine.
I wouldn’t discount the possibility entirely, but I’m no cardiologist. It could be that what relevant and known side effects there are re the heart could be more detrimental to people who physically push themselves very hard for a living.
Don't go down the rabbit hole Stewart. It is not true, if it was the same thing would be happening in basketball players, football, hockey, track and field and so on. Its BS and the strategy is to overwhelm to the point where normal people start thinking, well if there is smoke.
If you take the time to dig at each claim they are extremely stupid and based on either manipulated, made up, or out of context numbers.
You do make a rather sage point there Jimmy. Still I find my default response of ‘this is bollocks’ rather ineffective. Especially as the poster boy for this claim wasn’t even bloody vaccinated, according to his club anyway.
The goalposts shift with such breathtaking regularity too. I don’t recall ‘skeptics’ being receptive to me favouring extended travel restrictions to prevent the development and spread of worse variants, but now people are concerned with vaccines facilitating the very same thing? :S
On November 27 2021 00:00 WombaT wrote: I’m seeing this crop up, what’s the hypothesis here that these players are adversely reacting to vaccines?
It’s quite a small increase in quite a large sample. So there’s that. To my knowledge, and to such a degree as there’s privacy involved, elite level footballers aren’t vaccinated at the rate of the genera population, although this may have changed since the podcast I listened to with their numbers was quite some time ago.
One would assume that we’d see bigger spikes in cardiac problems across the wider population, to my knowledge this is not the case, but I’ve not seen numbers disproving or making a case for that either way.
To boot there seems a lot of misinformation swirling around, for example the most high profile public cardiac arrest I can think of in Christian Eriksen did not, as some claim and as far as I can ascertain have the vaccine.
I wouldn’t discount the possibility entirely, but I’m no cardiologist. It could be that what relevant and known side effects there are re the heart could be more detrimental to people who physically push themselves very hard for a living.
Don't go down the rabbit hole Stewart. It is not true, if it was the same thing would be happening in basketball players, football, hockey, track and field and so on. Its BS and the strategy is to overwhelm to the point where normal people start thinking, well if there is smoke.
If you take the time to dig at each claim they are extremely stupid and based on either manipulated, made up, or out of context numbers.
You do make a rather sage point there Jimmy. Still I find my default response of ‘this is bollocks’ rather ineffective. Especially as the poster boy for this claim wasn’t even bloody vaccinated, according to his club anyway.
The goalposts shift with such breathtaking regularity too. I don’t recall ‘skeptics’ being receptive to me favouring extended travel restrictions to prevent the development and spread of worse variants, but now people are concerned with vaccines facilitating the very same thing? :S
*Arghs internally*
Its a sad state of affairs when you have to start with the presumption of everything coming from this crowd to be a lie and then check to see if this one is different rather than the other way around.
On November 27 2021 03:44 maybenexttime wrote: Not only that. Delta-specific boosters have been undergoing clinical trials since August. Their efficacy is so far not better than a 3rd shot of the old vaccine.
Its not even just misinformation, there is misinformation on top of other misinformation. This whole plot is lkke a russian doll of lies.
If you want to post videos and shit put a explanation about them and why we should care, that is the rules. And when 95% or more of what you post is complete garbage its a real time suck.
Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control.
It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly.
This is not a politics thread! You are allowed to post information regarding politics if it's related to the coronavirus, but do NOT discuss politics in here.
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
Because they're talking about slightly different things just from the quotes you pulled. Dr Javid is talking about a predicted increased transmissibility and lower vaccine effectiveness due to the mutations seen in the virus... both are worrying.
Dr Coetzee is saying that thus far the cases are mild. This statement does not contradict Dr. Javid at all. She does however allow for future information to change her opinion.
One of the typical patterns of a virus is to mutate to become less deadly over time because deadly viruses kill their own food. Less deadly viruses maintain their food supply. Omicron may be more transmissible and more resistant to current vaccines, but also be less deadly. In that case, both doctors end up being right.
It may also turn out that there is more to transmissibility and vaccine resistance than the current knowledge of virus genetics would suggest and that Dr. Javid's current understanding will turn out to be wrong.
It may also turn out that omicron really is going to be absolutely terrible and Dr. Coetzee's current observations of milder cases will turn out to be wrong.
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
One of the typical patterns of a virus is to mutate to become less deadly over time because deadly viruses kill their own food. Less deadly viruses maintain their food supply. Omicron may be more transmissible and more resistant to current vaccines, but also be less deadly. .
And if it does turn out more transmissible and less deadly, then at what point is it treated the same as the flu?
So the question is if it is vaccine resistant then what happens in the 100 days or so before this new injection is ready? With many countries already blocking travel from Africa and NY already declaring a state of emergency over it + Show Spoiler +
the answer is pretty clear.More restrictions, more lockdowns, expansion of vaccine passports and mandates.Repeat every new variant, relax the rules slightly in summer only to bring in even stricter restrictions every following Autumn.I can’t see any ‘Return to normal’ on the horizon, just a slow creep into total control.
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
One of the typical patterns of a virus is to mutate to become less deadly over time because deadly viruses kill their own food. Less deadly viruses maintain their food supply. Omicron may be more transmissible and more resistant to current vaccines, but also be less deadly. .
And if it does turn out more transmissible and less deadly, then at what point is it treated the same as the flu?
So the question is if it is vaccine resistant then what happens in the 100 days or so before this new injection is ready? With many countries already blocking travel from Africa and NY already declaring a state of emergency over it + Show Spoiler +
the answer is pretty clear.More restrictions, more lockdowns, expansion of vaccine passports and mandates.Repeat every new variant, relax the rules slightly in summer only to bring in even stricter restrictions every following Autumn.I can’t see any ‘Return to normal’ on the horizon, just a slow creep into total control.
It will depend on how deadly and each government's tolerance for new deaths. I won't pretend to know what the tolerance levels are for each government.
Omicron is a fast moving situation. Nobody wants to have another massive wave, so people are currently reacting harshly and treating the situation very seriously. If further data shows that it's not as dangerous, I would expect the new restrictions to be dropped fast.
Having said that, the conspiratorial part of your post is just wrong. Governments in democracies can't gain total control through pandemic lockdowns unless you think they're going to cancel votes because of Covid. That would be unprecedented in any major democracy and would be worrying. Governments that are held accountable by their people through democracy have a huge disincentive to overreact to Covid and many have underreacted by bowing to public pressure to open up and not require vaccines.
Tanking your own economy is not exactly good for your reelection chances and is only done because of a great necessity.
I mean really there are a variety of scenarios that can play out over the next few weeks. You can hope for the best while still planning for the worst. It's definitely in pretty much every country in the world by now, or will be in the next few weeks. Travel bans I don't think do very much to stop global spread. Maybe delays the inevitable by a week or two at most. Reality probably is somewhere in between the best case and worst case.
Best case Somewhat immune resistant, less transmissible, much less deadly, net effect of nothing to worry about. Nothing really changes, but it gives parts of the world some time to deal with Delta. Economy tanks a bit, people get pissed at all the restrictions for seemingly nothing which are then dropped, and life goes on.
Worst. highly immune resistant, more transmissible than Delta, more lethal than Delta, so basically a super covid variant with very little of the benefits of prior immunity or vaccination.
@Ren normal viruses generally mutate to be less deadly, but there's not a lot of pressure for Covid to do so because it is relatively slow, and a majority of cases are mild enough that people can and do walk around while still infectious. Most people take weeks to succumb, and have plenty of time to spread it even if they do eventually kick the bucket.
Aside from anything else, all these folks advocating for certain measures you know, also have to live under said measures.
It’s a pretty silly power grab as power grabs go. They don’t all live in some scary elite Covid cabal equivalent of Mohdoo IslandTM, sequestered away from the rest of society.
I mean I don’t personally know any of the shadowy elite, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps they too like travelling, going to bars and concerts.
And yes, there will be mixed messaging because different people speaking to different audiences will, incredibly, sometimes say different things.
A scientist in a research capacity will address the virus in a more limited scope, what it does, what we know based on current knowledge. A scientist in an advisory capacity has to consider other factors, like weighting it against economic/social factors in terms of trying to formulate policy advice. A government minister has to implement and sell policy to the public, so yes messaging will vary based on that alone.
Javid has to at least lay the ground for the possibility of lockdowns in advance, whether we go down that route or not sprinting from a state of ‘everything’s fine’ to ‘lockdown time’ would be exceedingly unpopular, and it’s not exactly a popular prospect to begin with.
On November 27 2021 20:31 WombaT wrote: Aside from anything else, all these folks advocating for certain measures you know, also have to live under said measures.
It’s a pretty silly power grab as power grabs go. They don’t all live in some scary elite Covid cabal equivalent of Mohdoo IslandTM, sequestered away from the rest of society.
I mean I don’t personally know any of the shadowy elite, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps they too like travelling, going to bars and concerts.
And yes, there will be mixed messaging because different people speaking to different audiences will, incredibly, sometimes say different things.
A scientist in a research capacity will address the virus in a more limited scope, what it does, what we know based on current knowledge. A scientist in an advisory capacity has to consider other factors, like weighting it against economic/social factors in terms of trying to formulate policy advice. A government minister has to implement and sell policy to the public, so yes messaging will vary based on that alone.
Javid has to at least lay the ground for the possibility of lockdowns in advance, whether we go down that route or not sprinting from a state of ‘everything’s fine’ to ‘lockdown time’ would be exceedingly unpopular, and it’s not exactly a popular prospect to begin with.
Just one correction, scientists working in an advisory capacity for governments absolutely don't consider economic/social factors at all. They are only there to give scientific advice in their own specialist area, and if they stray outside that brief they are usually ignored. This has been the source of some discussion. We are often told about the consequences of letting the virus spread, or failing to enact lockdowns, but there is very little hard science that tells us about the negative effects of lockdown (ie the mental health effects) because there is so little data to go on and that data is really hard to gather. This has led to a kind of one sided messaging where we are told about what the virus will do to society, but are pretty much in the dark about what continued lockdowns will do. Its up to politicians and their economic/social experts to decide the impact of lockdowns.
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
One of the typical patterns of a virus is to mutate to become less deadly over time because deadly viruses kill their own food. Less deadly viruses maintain their food supply. Omicron may be more transmissible and more resistant to current vaccines, but also be less deadly. .
And if it does turn out more transmissible and less deadly, then at what point is it treated the same as the flu?
So the question is if it is vaccine resistant then what happens in the 100 days or so before this new injection is ready? With many countries already blocking travel from Africa and NY already declaring a state of emergency over it + Show Spoiler +
the answer is pretty clear.More restrictions, more lockdowns, expansion of vaccine passports and mandates.Repeat every new variant, relax the rules slightly in summer only to bring in even stricter restrictions every following Autumn.I can’t see any ‘Return to normal’ on the horizon, just a slow creep into total control.
That new vaccine in 100 days thing is not true because of antigenic sin. But if that wasn't a factor they couldnt do it anyway because they would be pushing evolution of the virus with another imperfect vaccine.
I think theyre saying it just to calm fears, basically lying.
On November 27 2021 19:50 Amui wrote: I mean really there are a variety of scenarios that can play out over the next few weeks. You can hope for the best while still planning for the worst. It's definitely in pretty much every country in the world by now, or will be in the next few weeks. Travel bans I don't think do very much to stop global spread. Maybe delays the inevitable by a week or two at most. Reality probably is somewhere in between the best case and worst case.
Best case Somewhat immune resistant, less transmissible, much less deadly, net effect of nothing to worry about. Nothing really changes, but it gives parts of the world some time to deal with Delta. Economy tanks a bit, people get pissed at all the restrictions for seemingly nothing which are then dropped, and life goes on.
Worst. highly immune resistant, more transmissible than Delta, more lethal than Delta, so basically a super covid variant with very little of the benefits of prior immunity or vaccination.
@Ren normal viruses generally mutate to be less deadly, but there's not a lot of pressure for Covid to do so because it is relatively slow, and a majority of cases are mild enough that people can and do walk around while still infectious. Most people take weeks to succumb, and have plenty of time to spread it even if they do eventually kick the bucket.
Best case would actually be if it was only as immune-resistant as Delta, much less deadly than Delta and much more transmissible. The virus would effectively work as a pseudo-vaccine. ;-)
Officials characterised the variant, which has double the number of mutations as the currently dominant Delta variant, as the "worst one yet".
"What we do know is there's a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the Delta variant," Britain's Health Minister Sajid Javid said.
"And that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective."
The chairwoman of the South African Medical Association Dr Angelique Coetzee claims to have only seen mild cases from it.
“It’s all speculation at this stage. It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” she said. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what’s happening. But for now we’re saying, ‘OK: there’s a whole hype out there. [We’re] not sure why.’”
One of the typical patterns of a virus is to mutate to become less deadly over time because deadly viruses kill their own food. Less deadly viruses maintain their food supply. Omicron may be more transmissible and more resistant to current vaccines, but also be less deadly. .
And if it does turn out more transmissible and less deadly, then at what point is it treated the same as the flu?
So the question is if it is vaccine resistant then what happens in the 100 days or so before this new injection is ready? With many countries already blocking travel from Africa and NY already declaring a state of emergency over it + Show Spoiler +
the answer is pretty clear.More restrictions, more lockdowns, expansion of vaccine passports and mandates.Repeat every new variant, relax the rules slightly in summer only to bring in even stricter restrictions every following Autumn.I can’t see any ‘Return to normal’ on the horizon, just a slow creep into total control.
That new vaccine in 100 days thing is not true because of antigenic sin. But if that wasn't a factor they couldnt do it anyway because they would be pushing evolution of the virus with another imperfect vaccine.
I think theyre saying it just to calm fears, basically lying.
Stop with the misinformation or back it up. Writing almost science because you read it on the BS website where you get your other tabliod fear pieces is not enough.
On November 02 2021 06:01 LegalLord wrote: I'll wait until a variant-specific booster myself. I'm not in any particular risk group and two-dose is more than enough to avoid the worst consequences of getting the corvid. Seems frivolous to get it without a good need, really.
Variant specific wont work any different for you because of antigenic sin.
What is antigenic sin?
It’s an obscure immunology phenomenon where having immunity to a related disease can actually make your immune response worse, because your body tries to use its learned immunity even though those antibodies don’t work very well.
Thing is, it’s predicated on antigen drift happening in the first place, which may or may not happen. Then it assumes this obscure phenomenon actually happens, which it might or might not. This *could* be a problem variant-specific boosters will hit, or it could not! That’s drug development.
TL;DR: File “antigenic sin” with “antibody-dependent enhancement” or any of the other science terms anti-vaxxers found googling for anything that could semi-plausibly support vaccines being bad. And like those terms, don’t believe it’s happening until there’s evidence it’s happening.
Antigenic Sin is a great name for a prog rock band on the other hand.
Teel, I outright don’t understand your point on an ‘imperfect vaccine pushing the evolution of the virus’. By what mechanism is that happening that wouldn’t happen magnitudes greater in a virus naturally spreading and doing its thing across a population?
This is a new angle for me
@Jock, correct correction, should have been more specific.
On November 28 2021 00:28 WombaT wrote: Antigenic Sin is a great name for a prog rock band on the other hand.
Teel, I outright don’t understand your point on an ‘imperfect vaccine pushing the evolution of the virus’. By what mechanism is that happening that wouldn’t happen magnitudes greater in a virus naturally spreading and doing its thing across a population?
This is a new angle for me
@Jock, correct correction, should have been more specific.
And i think without vaccines it would happen but much slower. I'm not an expert at all though, i'm just basing it on what Geert Vanden Bossche is saying. According to him for example, when you have an asymptomic infection you clear the virus with innate immunity which is not antigen specific meaning you don't drive virus evolution in any way. And most infections are asymptomic so that would reduce the pressure on the virus to evolve but ofcourse symptomatic infections would still put pressure. There are other points that he makes on why it wouldn't evolve as easily without vaccines for example how by the time you are clearing the virus with natural infection only then do you make antibodies. With vaccines you could easily get the virus lets say 3 days after vaccination while ideally you need to wait atleast 2 weeks, but nobody can enforce that or is even trying. He also says antibodies from natural infection are somewhat different but i have no idea in what way or what is the significance.
Basically you can trust him or not, since youre not an expert so you can only choose who you trust and which arguments make more sense to you.
You can watch and see what he had to say in april of this year