The Omicron variant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400219#Comment_118400219

We are therefore both in agreement then that this poster made a false statement.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118399275#Comment_118399275

The difference is that PPE is widely available to close-contact workers and also to the public. Therefore, vulnerable people who avoid crowded public areas (e.g. pubs) are less likely to be infected.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400239#Comment_118400239

If you find my posts tiring and boring why bother reading them? I don’t really care what you think. I gave my opinion on Omicron and i think it’s a possible outcome, nothing definite of course. Your post above is just an insult to my opinion.

i’m not petty or childish so i won’t be putting you on ignore like some posters do on here. I think that’s petty and childish. However i won’t be reading your posts or replies from here on so waste your time typing away and i’ll just scroll on. So carry on talking to your condescending self.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400299#Comment_118400299

No we are not both in agreement, sorry. You or I don’t know if it’s that variant yet. So we don’t know if it’s false or not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400327#Comment_118400327

You or I don’t know if it’s that variant yet. So we don’t know if it’s false or not.

Exactly, so it doesn't "appear" that it's this variant, as that poster suggested, and we therefore are in agreement that this poster is incorrect in their assertion.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400339#Comment_118400339

Twisting words again? It could be that variant or it might not be so his post could be true or false. I never said it was true or false. I said it could be.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400301#Comment_118400301

How does that address your statement "How has Omicron being less lethal still mean that the hospital case numbers have increased?"

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400357#Comment_118400357

The wider availability of PPE should mean that vulnerable people have better protection and thus make the hospital case numbers less likely to rise. Why is that not the case?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400356#Comment_118400356

Jesus, I am not twisting words. This is getting a bit childish.

Hypothetically, let's say the scientific community believed that the Delta variant had a 10% chance of being the last VOC. We are in agreement that the Omicron variant is more than 10% likely of being the last VOC. The poster we are referencing instead believes it is likely to be the last VOC, i.e. that there is a greater than 50% chance of it being the last VOC.

There is large difference in saying that it more likely than Delta (greater than 10%) than there is in saying that it is more likely than not (greater than 50%), it is not "twisting words".

So, again, do you believe that that poster was correct in asserting that Omicron is likely to be the last VOC? If so, what is your evidence? Everything you have stated so far only suggests that is it more likely than Delta.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400309#Comment_118400309

I think yours is a fascinating perspective to hold. To be unable to tolerate the possibility of things not working out as you want, so you presume anyone who doesnt think the best possibility is the most likely, is actually wishing for a more harmful variant.

That takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to overlook the fact that your predictions from last year have proven completely wrong, but you persist with the strategy.

You can put me on ignore if you want. But ignoring posts that challenge your strategy is precisely what I'm talking about. How did you phrase it? Insulting to your opinion. I'll still read posts I disagree with because sometimes I find it fascinating to see someone so wrong and so confident.

Did the fact that your predictions were completely wrong insult your opinion, or was having it pointed out the insulting part?

Covid is actually a serious issue, I take it seriously and would like to discuss what's likely to happen, not just the best possible scenario to the complete exclusion of everything else in case it offends my opinion.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400422#Comment_118400422

Are you suggesting that there is only one factor in determining the number of hospitalisations? The change in dominant variant is not a factor?

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400467#Comment_118400467

The post i was replying to didn’t have the rigmarole in your reply above. I’ll repeat i have said i don’t know if Omicron is the last VOC.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400496#Comment_118400496

Well then you'll have no problem answering the following question.

Is there any indication that Omicron is more likely to be the last VOC than not?

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400505#Comment_118400505

i already answered, i don’t know. It could help prevent further strains developing because it may peak and decline quicker than other previous strains like what has happened in previous pandemics.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400539#Comment_118400539

Yes, and you are therefore in agreement that that poster is incorrect, because that poster didn't say "I don't know", did they?

If you "don't know", then you can't agree with that poster's assertion.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400550#Comment_118400550

No we are not in agreement that he’s incorrect . He gave his opinion. We don’t know if he’s right or wrong or not yet. Ask me in 6 months when we have a better picture of what’s going on.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400580#Comment_118400580

Of course we don't as there is not enough data, and yet you still "don't doubt" his opinion. Would you like to explain why not, considering that you've just stated that you don't know if he's right or wrong?

The point being made is is that that poster claimed that it was more likely than not that Omicron was the last VOC. In your first response to that post, it seems that you responded to a completely different post because everything you said after "I don't doubt that" in that post only explained why Omicron is more likely than Delta to be the last VOC. In other words, your reply to that post was completely pointless.

Perhaps I'll phrase it differently for you. Is the following statement true for you personally or not?

"I am aware of evidence that suggests Omicron is more likely to be the last VOC than not."

Note that there is no "I don't know" answer due to the first four words of this statement.

Beasty

Aristotle and Micky 32, just leave it there

amandstu

@political analyst Are you saying that you largely ignore(have ignored) medical advice with the exception of avoiding close contact with people you know are in a vulnerable group?

McGiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118400539#Comment_118400539

You're confusing variants and strains.

Variants = same Virus, vaccine will work - example Covid Alpha, Beta, Delta etc

Strains = different virus, vaccine won't work - example H5N1, H3N2 etc

If new Sars-Cov strain emerges we're fúcked. New variant is managable on the other hand.

Also, theatre notion of "last VOC" is nonsense. Evolution doesn't stop, I'm afraid.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401794#Comment_118401794

I was wondering about this. So many people saying Omicron is the end of the pandemic. Why wouldn’t the virus just keep mutating? Surely Omicron makes things much worse. It is so infectious, if it mutated into something much more dangerous vaccines could not be produced in time to save us.

Sweet.Science

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401850#Comment_118401850

World could end tomorrow.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401850#Comment_118401850

You mean like in all the other pandemics since the beginning of time that turned lethal and made humans extinct?

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401977#Comment_118401977

Some of them had catastrophic death rates.

I am reasonably optimistic that the SARS-CoV2 is learning to live among us without destroying us as would hopefully be the evolution of it. Of course there will be forever a degree of vigilance about it, but it is likely the world will be managing to live with it without too much bother to most individuals within the year. And we must not forget that vaccines did actually save lives.

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401993#Comment_118401993

Yes in mid pandemic but all evolved to our advantage.

deholleboom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401794#Comment_118401794

It of course depends on the definition of VOC. To me it seems a rather flexible term even though i am well aware of the official one. What i am hinting at is that the WHO might decide at some point that new variants might not be labeled as such until its impact is showing in a significant way. Omicron just might be the game changer. Hard to imagine a more transmissible variant..

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401850#Comment_118401850

Its mostly wishful thinking based on the popular idea that the virus will become milder with each iteration. There's an idea that it will become more more transmissable and less harmful and will only travel in that direction and with some kind of balance e.g. if it infects twice as many people then it will be half as harmful to balance it out.

The Omicron variant follows this idea by being more transmissible less harmful and some people think this means the next variant will be much more mild than this one. That's the way we all hope it will go but it's not the way it has to go or the only way it can go.

Well just have to wait and see how it actually goes. Its unsatisfying and it would be great if there was an easy answer, but there isn't an easy answer.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118401850#Comment_118401850

Omicron being so transmissible means near every one will be exposed to it.

It ends the novelty factor, that the body was dealing with an unknown virus with which it had no experience.

It's the novel aspect that is such a problem for the body.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118402018#Comment_118402018

This keeps being trotted out as a fact. IE viruses mutate, or overwhelmingly mutate down to less harmful forms. It's a complete bloody nonsense and no actual virologist would make anything like such a claim and I do wish people would stop peddling this ballsology.

Actually, for the craic go ahead and name one that did. Should be easy...

Or not. Smallpox: With us for over two thousand years. Didn't get any less nasty. That killed hundreds of millions of men women and kids in the 20th century alone. Influenza? Around for at least as long, most years it kills between a quarter and half a million every time it does the rounds. Didn't get any less nasty. Indeed when it does mutate it's more likely to become more nasty. That's when you get flu pandemics. Rabies, around for over three thousand years and still pretty much 100% fatal if you get it and don't get the vaccine before it spreads in your nerves. Did it get less dangerous? Polio, around for thousands of years, didn't get any less dangerous. Measles ditto. Tetanus around for thousands of years. Still deadly. HIV has been around for nearly fifty years. Did it get less dangerous? Bird flu strains have become more transmissable and more dangerous. Even ebola looks like it ramped up its nastiness. The 1918 flu that killed tens maybe even hundreds of millions at a time when the world's population was a quarter of what it is today? It got worse, much worse after the first wave.

Pandemics indeed came and went in the past. It wasn't because the viruses got any less deadly, it was simply because they burned through the population leaving the survivors with immunity to that strain and the dead. Neither of which can be hosts or get sick again. The viruses ran out of hosts, then as time passed and the immunity levels in a population dropped they came back, just as deadly as before. The invention of vaccination sped up the getting rid of suitable hosts by giving the uninfected immunity ahead of time. The viruses did not mutate or evolve "to our advantage".