This is Just Cringeworthy
Cringeworthy, are the numbers of people who still are unvaccinated and believe they will not be stricken by Covid. Hospitals, doctors, nurses and the staff are at critical mass again. Meanwhile courts continue to block mandatory vaccinations on the premise it is their right to become infected and endanger others. And Republicans are cheering on their supporters to resist anything which may prevent Covid.
Cringworthy; VP Kamala Harris In an Interview, LA Times,
“‘We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see Delta coming,” she said. ‘We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.'”
Prof. and Geneticist Joel Eissenberg on Omicron
I’m sure most scientists foresaw COVID variants. I know I did. I’m neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist. As a geneticist, I’m a student of population biology and evolution. During a pandemic, viral populations are immense. Variation occurs with each generation, and the larger the population, the larger each generation and the higher the probability of variants that affect infection rates and/or virulence. The driver of evolution is selection acting upon natural variation.
Ultimate cringeworthy . . . It was completely predictable that variants such as Delta and Omicron would appear, and will continue to appear until the pandemic abates.
Professor Joel,
“…Ultimate cringeworthy . . . It was completely predictable that variants such as Delta and Omicron would appear, and will continue to appear until the pandemic abates.”
[Could not have said it better myself. Thanks for the sanity. We have already heard far too much Hannity and inanity. Or is that a distinction without a difference? ]
Of course it was completely predictable that variants would appear, and that variants such as Delta and Omicron might appear. I don’t think it was predictable that variants such as Delta and Omicron would appear. Most mutations are neutral or harmful to the virus, and many (probably the vast majority) that are beneficial produce a small benefit. So it was perfectly possible that there be many variants but little effect, maybe a gradual increase is transmission or ability to evade immunity generated by prior infection or vaccination. It was also possible at the beginning that the original COVID-19 became pandemic because it had an unusual structure that allowed easy transmission, and that there were not a lot of mutations that could increase transmission much further. There is a limit on what mutation can do.
Also, there is no direct selection for increased virulence. Virulence can increase as a side effect of things that are selected for (more virus production might make you sicker, or being sicker might make you expel more virus), but too much virulence is bad (an infected person that is laid up or dead will contact many fewer people than one that is well enough to be walking around). Many viruses cause the common cold, but they are doing fine without becoming more virulent.
Anyway, the presence of Delta and Omicron should show us that we’re not going to be safe as long as CoVID-19 is rampant anywhere. We should be making vaccine as fast as possible and giving it free to people who want it anywhere. Not just giving it where there is the most money to be made.
@Mike,
Most of what you say is true. However, in a world-wide pandemic, the probability of a rare event approaches unity. While there is a limit on what mutation can do, neither you nor I know what that limit is for SARS-CoV-2 or how close we are to that limit. Many of us were startled at the number of amino acid changes that appeared in the Omicron variant; evidence suggests that together they make the virus more infectious and somewhat more vaccine-resistant, but possibly less virulent than Delta.
The evidence to date suggests that SARS-CoV-2 only recently jumped to humans. So as you intimate, the virus is likely to be selected for less, not more, virulence over time as it becomes endemic. I would predict that as well.
I’ll leave it to others to parse the difference between ” . . . it was completely predictable that . . . variants such as Delta and Omicron might appear” and “I don’t think it was predictable that variants such as Delta and Omicron would appear.”
i have been wondering about that as well…how many other viruses are as infectious as Omicron is? how does it compare to measles, for instance? i understand it may be too soon to answer that question accurately, so a hedged opinion will do…
Rjs
Many other viruses are more contagious, small pox, measles, ebola, etc.
@rjs,
The most recent estimate of R naught for omicron that I’ve seen is between 3 and 5. For measles, R naught is 12-18. Here’s a tutorial on R naught:
https://health-desk.org/articles/how-contagious-is-the-delta-variant-compared-to-other-infectious-diseases
Joel:
R3 is a substantial increase from what it was. R5 is double. Originally R3 and maybe R5 was thought to be Covid’s. Thanks for the link, I m still trying to figure out how to get an address on an Apple Mac.
“The original strain of SARS-CoV-2 has an R0 of 2·5, while the delta variant (B.1.617.2) has an R0 of just under 7. Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (London, UK), reckons omicron’s R0 could be as high as 10. “
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00559-2/fulltext
prior
Thank you. Joel has a pretty good background for this also. The data is all kind of close to being right.
Trump reveals he got COVID-19 booster shot; crowd boos him
Former President Donald Trump revealed he received a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, drawing boos from a crowd in Dallas.
Trump made the disclosure Sunday night during the final stop of “The History Tour,” a live interview show he has been doing with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. …
While Trump has expressed opposition to vaccine mandates, he has long taken credit for the vaccines developed on his watch. At the same time, he has refused to urge his supporters to take them, even though Republicans remain far less likely than Democrats to be protected. …
Trump had told the Wall Street Journal in a September interview that he “probably” wouldn’t get a booster shot.
“I feel like I’m in good shape from that standpoint,” he told the paper. “I’ll look at stuff later on. I’m not against it, but it’s probably not for me.”
The U.S. has been urging all eligible Americans to get booster shots as quickly as possible as the country faces a surge in the new, highly contagious omicron variant. Both Moderna and Pfizer have said that booster shots of their COVID-19 vaccines appear to offer protection against the new strain, which preliminary evidence suggests can better evade vaccines than previous versions.
Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, and received experimental monoclonal antibodies treatment. His former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, revealed in a book released this month that Trump was far sicker than the White House disclosed at the time.
Before the booing, Trump on Sunday told the audience that they should “take credit” for the success of the vaccines developed while he was in office.
“Look, we did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We together, all of us — not me, we — we got a vaccine done, three vaccines done, and tremendous therapeutics” Trump said. “This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now. Take credit for it. Take credit for it…. Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves.”
“You’re playing right into their hands when you sort of like, ‘Oh the vaccine,’” he added. “If you don’t want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced to take it. No mandates,” he said, drawing cheers. “But take credit because we saved tens of millions of lives. Take credit. Don’t let them take that away from you.”
Cringeworthy indeed, and brought to you by the same people that did this.
PHOENIX (AP) — A month after his acquittal on murder charges, Kyle
Rittenhouse was given a standing ovation at a conservative group’s
conference in Phoenix where panelists discussed the 2020 deadly
shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
https://www.newsbreak.com/n…
(Not necessarily in the US however.)
America is ‘closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,’ CIA advisor says
For the more mathematically inclined, here’s some modeling to help explain why the omicron variant is displacing the delta variant. The key appears to be the ratio of R naught to immune escape:
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1470420195567030274
Joel:
This: “For these purposes, I assume that strain 1 (ie Delta) is at endemic equilibrium, where epidemic growth is balanced by population immunity, but where the strain continues to circulate due to waning immunity (ω = 1/365 per day). 5/15 or to add spread due to a lack of vaccination.
@run,
Yep, lack of vaccination continues to be a huge barrier to beating down the pandemic. Just saw the first omicron death has been recorded: a man who had previously had a COVID-19 infection but chose not to be vaccinated. Sad.
Joel:
The mathematical logic implies such and is the easiest path for continuing a plague. I would believe there was some immunity. Just not enough.
R0 (R naught) is one measure of ability of a disease to spread. It is roughly the average number of people infected directly from one infected person early in an epidemic. But that isn’t the only important measure, because it doesn’t tell you anything about how long it takes for these people to be infected, and this will influence how fast the disease will spread. The rate of increase in an infectious disease depends on factors such as the time between when a person is exposed and the time they can start spreading the disease to others, and when infectiousness peaks. The fast increase in Omicron could be due to these times being short as much as its R0 being high.
i continue to see reports of the fully vaccinated testing positive (including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan yesterday)…today there’s 47 all in one place:
Seems like these ‘breakthrough’ cases are pretty easy to get.
Hopefully they are indeed as mild as people say.
Let covid mutate into something no worse than a cold.
i’ve now seen reports over the past couple that 6 fully vaccinated congresscritters, 2 governors, and the NY state health commissioner have tested positive…those plus more articles on athletes than i can count…
but me saying “i’ve seen a lot of articles” doesn’t prove anything…
maybe we’ll get to the bottom of it now that Elizabeth Warren is on the case; her older brother died from Covid, and they were very close, so she won’t take no bullshit:
While I like Warren, I’m certain that breakthrough cases are being tracked, and would be regardless. Despite GOP efforts to convince Americans otherwise, the science/epidemiology of COVID-19 is not political, except on the right.
And that will be true even if Fox realizes its public goal of having Tony Fauci assassinated.
the CDC gets its Covid data from the states, Joel, and as far as i know only Oregon and a handful of other states are tracking breakthrough infections…i’m modestly familiar with Ohio’s Covid reports, and i’ve never seen vaccinated Covid cases mentioned…i don’t know where they’d get that data; i was tested for Covid several times this year (as a prerequisite for a series of hospital procedures) and they never asked me if i was vaccinated…
there were a lot of news stories about it when the CDC stopped tracking breakthough cases; here’s one:
CDC under fire for decision to limit tracking of Covid-19 cases –
before Delta, it wasn’t an issue, because there were few breakthrough cases then…but with the 10 fold increase in new cases following Delta’s arrival, regular appraisals of breakthrough cases were hard to come by…here’s one from August 18th:
as i mentioned, Oregon has been at the forefront of tracking breakthrough cases; here’s their latest report: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/Documents/DataReports/Breakthrough-Case-Report.pdf
that’s from a 10 page report, which also summarizes breakthrough cases by variant and by vaccine manufacture, and has historical graphs; that 30% breakthrough rate was pretty consistent during the weeks before Omicron arrived; in fact, only 3 of the breakthrough cases they’ve sequenced were Omicron; the vast majority were Delta..
the article about Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the CDC that i cited came from the Hill, which is fairly middle of the road, not Fox news; i don’t have a political agenda in this, left, right or otherwise; as should be obvious from everything i post here, i am only interested in accurate data…i might have cited Fox on one occasion; i don’t know, but if i did it was because their story came up in Google when i was searching for it…i do not follow Fox news and know nothing about their animosity towards Fauci, although i can imagine…i do follow the World Socialist Web Site though, and get several dozen stories from them every morning, so i am way more likely to cite them than Fox..
NB: here’s the missing link from my cite above: CDC under fire for decision to limit tracking of Covid-19 cases in vaccinated people – POLITICO