Coronavirus

[G. Keenan]

Preach. By the time a new variant is detected, verified, and announced it is already in half the countries on Earth. Any US citizen, green card, or visa holder in South Africa can right now get on a plane and fly here. So what exactly is the point? The world ends up punishing countries for being transparent and announcing these new variants.

All these border closures do is create panic and renew the feeling of a siege mentality. Just have an international standard vaccine and testing protocol that applies to all countries. My suggestion would be that to fly international you need to 1) show proof of full vaccination and 2) a negative test result less than 24 hours old before boarding the flight. Mandatory quarantines on arrival regardless of test status I don't support. Being forced to sit in a hotel room for a week after arriving somewhere is a de-facto ban on all business and leisure travel.

Unless you do what Australia did in 2020 and ban even your own citizens from flying home from abroad, it's no ban at all. There are too many exceptions and ways to get around it. I'm sensitive to the argument that we need to buy time for scientists to study these new variants, but we can do that using the above mentioned protocols without resorting to a blanket ban that isn't really a ban and just ends up creating fear and economic damage.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

What does buying time to study new variants really accomplish? Not like in two weeks time the US is going to be like, welp, we got this omicron figured out. We'll have a unified response in place and open the borders. GTFO. Not you @G.Keenan but governments around the world, especially the US.

This may belong in politics since it's talking about governments, but really it doesn't. This is just a fact.

The only country that has successfully kept the virus at bay, and maybe there are more but the only one I know of is new zealand. A small island country. And...now they're trying to figure out wtf to do because it's apparent the virus isn't going anywhere.

[mikechamp]

What does buying time to study new variants really accomplish?

I was under the impression that the vaccine manufacturers were testing the Omicron variant against the current vaccines and, in 2 weeks' time, would have a good sense on how effective/not effective they are.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

What does buying time to study new variants really accomplish?

I was under the impression that the vaccine manufacturers were testing the Omicron variant against the current vaccines and, in 2 weeks' time, would have a good sense on how effective/not effective they are.

The vax isn't going to be as effective against any variant almost by definition though. I think they've done testing or modelling and said omicron is no different.

And, if it's 80% effective vs 0% effective, what's it matter? Let's say it's 0% effective. 1. How do we know that? A computer model? Putting antibodies and the virus together and spinning to more/less see how well the condom fits and drawing conclusions on what will happen in humans? And, 2. are we going to play whack-a-mole with new travel bans every time a case pops up in a country? Travel bans are one of the, nay, the most capricious and arbitrary policies being used and they are incredibly ineffective.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 92769?s=21

On my phone so tough to embed. Regardless here’s probably one of your better sources for all things omicron in a Africa. The charts are still too early to determine much but interesting nevertheless.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Man my mind is in a complete pretzel trying to reconcile the two different graphs I used from earlier today and then just now.

Its almost as if, and bear with me because it’s some mental gymnastics but I have no other explanation, omicron (O) is way more transmissible and way less serious. This would explain the wastewater graph. It would also explain, with the help of paranoia and description of different symptoms, why confirmed cases are on an absolute blitz right now as people w that little sniffle or whatever go get tested. It doesn’t explain the hospitalizations wrt the previous waves as they are on pace more or less. But what if O is weeks ahead of schedule becaise no one knew about it and the hospitalizations make sense in that regard.

Or the wastewater sampling is meaningless. Also a possibility.

[GeddyWrox]

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 92769?s=21

On my phone so tough to embed. Regardless here’s probably one of your better sources for all things omicron in a Africa. The charts are still too early to determine much but interesting nevertheless.

[GeddyWrox]

Man my mind is in a complete pretzel trying to reconcile the two different graphs I used from earlier today and then just now.

Its almost as if, and bear with me because it’s some mental gymnastics but I have no other explanation, omicron (O) is way more transmissible and way less serious. This would explain the wastewater graph. It would also explain, with the help of paranoia and description of different symptoms, why confirmed cases are on an absolute blitz right now as people w that little sniffle or whatever go get tested. It doesn’t explain the hospitalizations wrt the previous waves as they are on pace more or less. But what if O is weeks ahead of schedule becaise no one knew about it and the hospitalizations make sense in that regard.

Or the wastewater sampling is meaningless. Also a possibility.

Further down the tweet thread you posted, there is a comp of highly-vaxxed countries to low-vaxxed countries. It could be that the vaccine is still helping keep people out of the hospital. But it could also be slightly or moderately less severe of a variant. Both could be true to some degree.

[G. Keenan]

I kinda feel sorry for Delta. It got, what, less than a year as champ before having to defend the title against Omicron?

Sic transit gloria.

[thrill]

I feel bad for the just plain 'ol coronavirus. Remember when we didn't even call it COVID-19 yet? Those were glory days of the pando.