The COVID-2019 Thread

[misskit]

Biden White House warns: COVID explosion imminent

New data from South Africa and Europe hint that Omicron cases are poised to explode in the U.S., where the vast majority of the population isn't well protected against infection.


Driving the news: A new analysis by South Africa's largest private insurer paints a picture of Omicron's clinical risk: Two doses of Pfizer's vaccine appear to be significantly less effective against severe disease with Omicron than previous variants.


But the variant is less likely to lead to hospitalization in adults than the original version.
What they're saying: "Everything points to a large wave. A large wave is coming," a senior Biden administration official told Axios.


"It will be fast. It won't be as severe, but regrettably, there will be plenty of hospitalizations," the official added.


By the numbers: The South African analysis, by Discovery Health, found that the risk of hospital admission among adults diagnosed with the Omicron variant is 29% lower than it was during South Africa's first wave of infections in 2020. The researchers adjusted their calculations by vaccination status.


Their vaccine effectiveness analysis included more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results, from which 41% were from adults who'd received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.


During the current Omicron wave, the two-dose regimen was 70% effective against severe disease requiring hospital admission. (Vaccine effectiveness is measured against the same risk in the unvaccinated.)


Yes, but: It also found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are only 33% effective against infection from Omicron.


The big picture: A dramatic surge in cases could still overwhelm our burnt-out health system if even a small percentage require hospital care.


The analysis found that vaccinated elderly people have slightly less protection against hospitalization, reinforcing the importance of booster shots in this age group.


They found children had a 20% higher risk of hospital admission than they did from previous variants.


State of play: The Delta variant is already driving yet another surge of cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. Omicron seems poised to make this significantly worse, given its high transmissibility and its ability to evade immune protection.


In Denmark, where about 80% of the population has been vaccinated, three-fourths of Omicron cases are among fully vaccinated people, and another 9% are among those who have received a booster shot, according to a report released by the Statens Serum Institut yesterday.


European countries have also been reporting that the variant is spreading rapidly, with cases doubling every two to three days.


Omicron's "exponential rise could take us to levels of even 1 million cases per day in the United States, which previously would have been considered an unthinkable projection," Scripps Research's Eric Topol wrote yesterday on Substack.


Yes, but: We don't have nearly enough data yet to make any firm predictions.


In South Africa, for example, case growth also appears to be slowing down, and there have been reports that hospitalized adults are less sick than in previous waves.


"The chances that those vaccines will continue to provide protection against serious illness against Omicron are very good," said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.


The bottom line: "Frankly we don't have enough reliable, robust data at this point to give a clear direction as to what this will look like in the weeks to months ahead," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.


But there is certainly a strong possibility that a lot of Americans are about to get sick — soon.


Biden official warns: COVID explosion imminent - Axios

[russellsimpson]

The bottom line: "Frankly we don't have enough reliable, robust data at this point to give a clear direction as to what this will look like in the weeks to months ahead," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Indeed.

The capacity of the human brain to scare monger is unfathomable. Don't worry, be happy.

[misskit]

Pfizer Says Its COVID Pill Paxlovid Can Fight Off Omicron

Pfizer says a new study has shown that its COVID-19 pill is effective in not only preventing serious infection, but also fighting off the Omicron strain that is expected to soon be dominant. “We are confident that, if authorized or approved, this potential treatment could be a critical tool to help quell the pandemic,” Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement early Tuesday. The company pointed to a new study of its Paxlovid pill that it said showed the drug was 89 percent effective in preventing hospitalization or death if given to a patient within three days of the onset of symptoms. The benefits of the drug were said to be almost just as good if given within five days of symptoms, with 88 percent effectiveness. While most of the patients involved in the study suffered from the Delta variant, lab experiments showed that Paxlovid successfully fights Omicron as well, according to Pfizer.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pfizer...ht-off-omicron

[harrybarracuda]

Indeed.

The capacity of the human brain to scare monger is unfathomable. Don't worry, be happy.

In the case of the US, it is not scare mongering.

We know it's more transmissible than any variant we've seen* :

We also know a large proportion of the US is unvaccinated, and a large proportion of those are high risk, obese trumpanzees.

It may well be a bloodbath, metaphorically speaking.

But hey, it's good for the mid-terms.



* Let's also not forget South Africa's testing rate is extremely low.

[harrybarracuda]

So it looks like the UK is taking the "let people get infected but also put in rules to stop people getting infected" approach, which isn't going to confuse people at all.

COVID-19: All countries on red list to be removed and travellers allowed to leave hotel quarantine early

COVID-19: All countries on red list to be removed and travellers allowed to leave hotel quarantine early | Travel News | Sky News

[Troy]

^ Boris must be having another party and doesn't want Covid affecting his guest list.

[misskit]

Australia reopens borders closed since March 2020 to vaccinated non-citizens


Australia reopened its borders on Wednesday to skilled migrants and foreign students who have received a coronavirus vaccine more than a year and a half after they were closed


The omicron variant slightly delayed the reopening, with officials pushing back the lifting of the entry ban by two weeks in order to obtain more information on the strain, Reuters reported.


News of the borders reopening comes as the country seeks to boost its economy after multiple lockdowns, the news service noted.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged that while Australia's most populous state reported its largest increase in daily infections, the Australian government is prepared to handle the virus.


"We're going to live with this virus, and we're not going to let it drag us back to where we've been," Morrison told a local radio station, according to Reuters.

"We've got one of the highest vaccination rates, which means we can fight this thing," Morrison added. "We don't have to surrender to it."

Australia closed its borders in March of 2020 at the onset of the pandemic and limited the number of citizens and residents who were allowed to reenter the country after that.


Nearly 90 percent of people in Australia over the age of 16 have received at least doses of a coronavirus vaccine. The country has reported nearly 235,500 cases and 2,117 COVID-19-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Australia reopens borders closed since March 2020 to vaccinated non-citizens | TheHill

[Joe 90]

The UK has recorded the highest number of daily Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 78,610 new cases on Wednesday.

The previous record was 68,053 on 8 January - when the UK was in lockdown.

Speaking at a news conference, England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty warned that records will be broken a lot in the next few weeks.

PM Boris Johnson said it is absolutely vital that everyone gets a booster jab.

He warned that in some areas the doubling rate was now under two days.

Mr Johnson said: "I'm afraid we're also seeing the inevitable increase in hospitalisations up by 10% nationally, week on week, and up by almost a third in London."

Prof Chris Whitty said the country is experiencing two separate epidemics, one driven by the "very rapidly-growing" Omicron variant and the other by the Delta variant.

He said: "I'm afraid we have to be realistic that records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks as the rates continue to go up."

The scientist added Delta cases appear to still be flat while Omicron is growing.

[harrybarracuda]

Same as South Africa. A pretty flat line as far as deaths are concerned.

[Joe 90]

Trying to book a second vaccination for my eldest and I get put into a queue, never happened before.

The panic is on and 1 million jabs a day is horse shit Boris...

[russellsimpson]

The shit has hit the fan in Canada as well. Serious panic setting in. Government strongly advising against any international travel. You can go but you may have a hell of a time getting back in. Crowd limits on sporting events. Co-vid is about to do serious damage to the NHL schedule.

I fear the entire world level response is going to be very disappointing. Strange the Aussies are opening up when much of North America is about to batten down the hatches.

Damn.

[Switch]

The shit has hit the fan in Canada as well. Serious panic setting in. Government strongly advising against any international travel. You can go but you may have a hell of a time getting back in. Crowd limits on sporting events. Co-vid is about to do serious damage to the NHL schedule.

I fear the entire world level response is going to be very disappointing. Strange the Aussies are opening up when much of North America is about to batten down the hatches.

Damn.

Just how North American banal can one person be?

[russellsimpson]

Just how North American banal can one person be?

I don't know who you were back on AF but you do seem often to have a sharp 2x4 lodged up your butt. What gives mate? Are you always this constructive?

[malmomike77]

Any countries reaction and measures will be driven by their 2nd and booster vaccine progress. Thd UK is in a race to get the boosters in within one or two months. I have booked mine for a couple of days after landing.

[aging one]

Russell you have stop living in the past. The vast majority of posters on here had nothing to do with AF.

[Troy]

Any countries reaction and measures will be driven by their 2nd and booster vaccine progress. Thd UK is in a race to get the boosters in within one or two months. I have booked mine for a couple of days after landing.

I'm going to wait until February when my 6 months are up before getting a booster. I am expecting Moderna to have a jab geared towards Omicron by then.

As far as I can make out the current vaccinations are not that effective against Omicron, which is why governments are panicky and bringing forward boosters. I managed to survive waiting until July/August for my jabs and don't mind waiting again for a more effective booster...especially since Covid is not a danger out in the sticks.

[malmomike77]

I tried to get my booster 6 days earlier than the 6 month point and was point blank refused, a couple of weeks later and they are begging for people to get boosters early. Oh well.

[Switch]

I don't know who you were back on AF but you do seem often to have a sharp 2x4 lodged up your butt. What gives mate? Are you always this constructive?

At least you have dropped the ironic signature.

[harrybarracuda]

As far as I can make out the current vaccinations are not that effective against Omicron

Effictiveness against infection has dropped to around 30%, but they are still very good at preventing severe illness or death.

[malmomike77]

^ my understanding too.

[OhOh]

Sinovac booster shot shows 94% neutralization efficacy against Omicron: company


By Leng Shumei Published: Dec 15, 2021 10:37 PM

"The latest study shows a third shot of Chinese biotech firm Sinovac's inactivated vaccine can more than double the vaccine's neutralizing antibody positive rate against the Omicron variant, the Global Times learned from the company on Wednesday.

The study was conducted by the company on 20 people who received two shots and another 48 who received three shots. Seven in the first group and 45 in the second tested positive in neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant, the company said in a statement to the Global Times.

Sinovac said that the data demonstrated that the administration of a booster shot of its vaccine can effectively enhance the vaccine's neutralizing capacity to the Omicron variant, read the statement."

Sinovac booster shot shows 94% neutralization efficacy against Omicron: company - Global Times

[harrybarracuda]

Sinovac booster shot shows 94% neutralization efficacy against Omicron: company

Yeah because they have produced so much data to prove their absurd claims from day one.

[harrybarracuda]

Some cheery news. Concrete results a way off but fingers should be crossed.

A researcher at a British university believes he may have found a unique new antiviral drug that can stop the cause of Covid-19, could be made into a pill, tackles respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, and crucially would not encourage drug resistance.

Prof Kin-Chow Chang of Nottingham University told i that early lab results for the antiviral, thapsigargin, have been so promising in the way it arms the body against the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus that they almost appear “too good to be true” – showing it is “one of a kind”.

Prof Chang emphasises that his team’s research, using cells and mice, is still at a preliminary stage. But further trials on animals are expected next year and his confidence is growing.

“The real big question to answer is: does it work in humans? So far more the science is very encouraging,” he said.

One of the biggest drawbacks to antivirals is that the viruses they target can mutate to become resistant to the drugs, especially if they are used individually. But instead of acting directly on a virus, thapsigargin boosts human cells to block several stages of the viral reproduction cycle, stopping an infection spreading through the body. This method should not encourage resistance, says Prof Chang.

Offering what he calls an “optimistic prediction”, Prof Chang says it has potential to be a prophylactic drug, used to fight potential infections early if someone feels ill.

“In the event of a winter respiratory disease, you go to your GP, and they don’t even have to diagnose whether you have influenza, Covid or RSV – because this drug works against all of them. They don’t have to have a diagnosis to prescribe the drug to you, and you can take it straight away.”

Molnupiravir, the world’s first antiviral pill to combat the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, is being made available to the most vulnerable Covid-19 patients from Wednesday, and Pfizer is hoping that its Paxlovid pills will also be approved for use in the NHS soon.

However, developing a broader range of antivirals – such as thapsigargin – would allow for more drug cocktails to overwhelm the virus and help preparations for other pandemics in future.

Prof Chang – who was born in Singapore and graduated from Bristol University as a vet, before becoming a researcher specialising in how viruses affect mammals – has been working on thapsigargin throughout the pandemic. It is derived from plants known as “deadly carrots”, but the minute doses needed in a pill are not toxic to human cells.

Prof Chang said there was scepticism about the results at first, “but the more we dig into it, the more convinced we are.”

He added: “People have looked at the data and said, ‘Look, this is this is not just Mickey Mouse research’.”

Prof Chris Butler of Oxford University, who is leading the nationwide Panoramic trial of molnupiravir to see whether it could be used more widely in the NHS, agreed that the thapsigargin results so far have been “exciting” but said the testing process ahead is complex.

Prof Butler said: “If we can show that in a human being it fires up the immune system in the way that we hope and expect, the next step is to prove that it does actually reduce the impact of the virus in the real world – in people who are naturally infected. So there are quite a few steps to go still.”

https://inews.co.uk/news/science/cov...02?ITO=newsnow

[harrybarracuda]

Looking at all these countries with a minority of people fully vaccinated, I guess we are going to find out quite quickly how many people that get Omicron are actually hospitalised or worse.

Holland is a good example. Still under 100 deaths a day.

Attachment 79847


And the UK is around the same despite a consistent surge (although a massive jump yesterday).

Attachment 79848

[taxexile]

Is omicron becoming the common cold? History and biology may have the answer...


Throughout the pandemic, scientists have hoped for a transmissible, trivial variant. Green shoots of hope suggest suggest it could be here

By
Dr Chris Smith,

CONSULTANT VIROLOGIST AND LECTURER, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

15 December 2021 • 4:53pm


Rolling down my sleeve after my Covid booster, I pull up a pew alongside my fellow vaccinees in the after-jab ‘chill out’ room where you loiter while they make sure there are not going to be any complications. As the clock ticks and I await my escape back to work on the wards, the pause gives me a moment to reflect on whether this present pattern – variant; surge; looming lockdown; new booster; do pass furlough (if you’re lucky); do collect £200 – will be the pattern of our lives for the months and years ahead. But, somehow, I don’t think it will be. And I have history, and evolutionary biology, on my side.

The reason we’re all dashing headlong for boosters at vaccine centres – which are, incidentally, easy to spot: you just look for the long queue of disaffected people standing outside in the rain, socially distanced and with only Facebook for friends – is because of omicron. This is the World Health Organisation’s new diplomatically-dubbed Covid variant, the naming of which involved skipping a few letters from the Greek alphabet to avoid offending anyone called Xi. Clearly, they didn’t get the memo about the new anti-wokery Bill.

Omicron was first picked up about a month ago in southern Africa. Patient zero was a young man who walked into GP Angelique Coetzee’s surgery with a set of symptoms remote from the usual Covid ‘holy trinity’ (anosmia, fever and a cough) that we’ve been schooled to look out for. This man chiefly had a “scratchy” throat and felt very fatigued. Despite Covid cases being very low in South Africa at the time, and in spite of his unusual symptoms, he was tested anyway. And when a further seven people walked in with identical symptoms that day, and the PCR test results began to come back from the lab, signalling coronavirus infection, the decision to test was proven to be the right one.

But what was even more informative was the genetic make-up of the virus behind these cases: when the South African scientists lined up the genetic codes of the existing delta variant that had been causing the majority of the country’s few hundred daily cases alongside the sequence from the latest infections, it was a chalk and cheese comparison. The virus behind the new infections was shot full of changes or mutations – 50 or so in all – with a big concentration of them centred on the part of the genetic code that the virus uses to code for the spike component of its outer coat.

That’s when alarm bells began to ring. The spike is the linchpin part of the virus that it uses to grab hold of and bust its way into our cells. Its key role means it’s also the structure targeted by the present generation of Covid vaccines, making a mutant virus bearing a dramatically altered spike structure a huge potential risk for a world that has so far vaccinated over 50 per cent of its population.

Just as alarming was the rapidity with which the cases of this new variant began to flood in. South Africa’s few hundred daily Covid cases turned into more than 10,000 a day, nearly all of them this new variant, provoking the WHO to declare it a variant of concern and name it ‘omicron’. Some scientists said it should have been called ‘Oh my God’, based on its fearsome-looking genetic profile.

But then came the paradox: despite many cases, including among vaccinated, unvaccinated and previously Covid-infected individuals indicating that omicron does appear, as predicted, to be swerving quite nicely around the barriers of pre-existing immunity, there hasn’t been the same intensity of consequences. The proportion of people on oxygen, or requiring more intensive hospital care, is much lower than with delta. People are recovering more quickly too, and the number of affected older people seems to be a lot lower. So far, medics in South Africa estimate that the case fatality rate of their omicron outbreak is about 0.5 per cent compared with 3 per cent for Delta.

Admittedly, it’s still early days. Patients don’t catch Covid and immediately head off to hospital, or worse, to the mortuary, and it’s too soon to gauge the risk of longer term sequelae, like long Covid, but these data do look very encouraging. Perhaps encouraging enough to make one seriously entertain the idea that perhaps this is a glimpse of where the Covid pandemic is ultimately heading: towards a more mild illness that is a tolerable inconvenience for all, rather than a death sentence for some.

Back in the late 1800s, the pathologist Theobald Smith (no relation, although that’s an easy mistake to make when there are so few of us around) hypothesised that illnesses naturally become more mild with time because it’s in the interest of both the host (us) and the disease to become better bedfellows. A more benign disease is better tolerated and less likely to provoke us to erect barriers to stop it spreading than something lethal that rapidly runs out of victims to infect.

Smith based his theories on cows rather than humans, and his ideas were certainly an over-simplification of the reality where, just like stocks and shares, the virulence of infections can rise as well as fall, but we’ve seen sufficient other examples of viruses attenuating their aggressiveness over time to make us take this idea seriously for Covid.

A handful of rabbits introduced to Australia alongside the first colonists swelled subsequently to a population measured in the hundreds of millions. To control their numbers, myxoma virus, a rabbit relative of smallpox, was introduced to the country in 1950 where it devastated the population, killing off over 99 per cent of the animals. But, subsequently, the virus lost its virulence and the lethality fell as the rabbits adapted to tolerate the pathogen, and vice versa.

This happens because viruses are parasites. They are effectively an infectious – though very tiny – bag of genes. Without us they have no home, so for an entity that exists solely to reproduce itself, excessive virulence can sometimes be a serious shot in the foot.

Could this happen with Covid? Indeed, is this happening with Covid? Is the virus, in the face of the measures with which we confront it, including existing human herd immunity conferred by vaccines and prior infection, now adapting in a more benign direction, or is omicron just a distraction that will eventually peter out?

The answer is that it might be – and this is where history can help, because we have strong evidence that it’s happened before, including with a coronavirus that still circulates today.


In 1890 a pandemic swept the globe and the death toll was more than a million. It was put down to flu, but, in more recent years, scientists have pieced together various lines of evidence suggesting that it was instead caused by a bovine coronavirus. This virus, which we now imaginatively call OC43, jumped the species barrier into humans, probably in much the same way that Covid owes its origins to a bat virus. Just as in Wuhan in late 2019, where urbanisation, high population density, live food markets and a highly mobile and densely connected populace fed an explosive outbreak, the same factors provoked bovine coronavirus to spread among overcrowded city dwellers.

The 344-page report on the outbreak, penned in 1891 by ‘Dr Parsons’, documents strikingly similar symptoms to Covid among those afflicted, and even talks about a post-viral syndrome eerily similar to long Covid. The extreme vulnerability of older people and those with pre-existing health conditions, as well as relative sparing of younger people, are also highlighted.

So what happened in the aftermath? Scientists suspect that, having spread rapidly among a population devoid of any immunity, the 1890 coronavirus left in its wake a herd of immune survivors who then, throughout the rest of their lives, periodically caught the virus again as their immunity waned and was then ‘topped up’ by the encounter, but the disease was never as bad as each individual’s first mild childhood encounter owing to underlying immune memory.

We suspect that the virus retreated into the background, acquiring some genetic changes along the way to facilitate its persistence in humans, to become one of four common cold-causing coronaviruses that we all periodically catch from the time we’re born to the time we die. And because we have a lifetime’s experience of catching it, just like Covid spares kids, it never makes us very ill.

This gives us an insight into a possible direction that Covid might be taking, with omicron. This variant is highly transmissible – possibly twice as much so as its delta cousin – and, consequently, it’s rapidly displacing the more aggressive delta to become the dominant circulating strain. You can never say never in medicine, and it’s not a given that other, more aggressive variants won’t surface from elsewhere in the months ahead, but wouldn’t it be a nice Christmas present if omicron does turn out to be like OC43, and more mild in nature despite being here to stay.



Is omicron becoming the common cold? History and biology may have the answer...

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