WHO Sounds Warning Over Fast-spreading Omicron (reuters.com) 215
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading faster than the Delta variant and is causing infections in people already vaccinated or who have recovered from the COVID-19 disease, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said. From a report: WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan added it would be "unwise" to conclude from early evidence that Omicron was a milder variant that previous ones. "... with the numbers going up, all health systems are going to be under strain," Soumya Swaminathan told Geneva-based journalists. The variant is successfully evading some immune responses, she said, meaning that the booster programmes being rolled out in many countries ought to be targeted towards people with weaker immune systems. "There is now consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the briefing. "And it is more likely people vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 could be infected or re-infected," Tedros said.
Unwise? (Score:5, Informative)
WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan added it would be "unwise" to conclude from early evidence that Omicron was a milder variant that previous ones.
So far it still appears that it is a milder variant, where the individual is concerned. But it also appears that it is so transmissible that the numbers (of cases requiring hospitalization, that is) are going up again to the point where hospitals will be overwhelmed...again.
It would be unwise to be complacent even if this is a milder variant.
Re:Unwise? (Score:5, Informative)
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It's not too early, by any stretch.
It's been out and about in South Africa for long enough to infect a massive number of people, and the doctors there all agree that it's an extremely mild strain, with very low hospitalizations/deaths. That data may be suspect in some minor details, but no serious medical professional from there agrees with you.
It's already apparently the major strain in some US states, and there's apparently been one - yes, ONE death attributed to Omicron in the whole US, and that was a gu
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It's been out and about in South Africa for long enough to infect a massive number of people, and the doctors there all agree that it's an extremely mild strain, with very low hospitalizations/deaths.
"Out and about in South Africa," where 80 percent [bloomberg.com] of people likely already had some variant of Covid already, many multiple times, thus bolstering their immune systems against Omicron. The fact that the CDC just announced that Omicron was the dominant strain in the US as of yesterday would seem to indicate that the US can't know how bad it's going to be yet.
As pointed out, the lag after infections before hospitalizations is a major reason that all medical professionals I've heard from (both in person and o
Re:Unwise? (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, for some reason, that "strain that is just as bad" seems to be causing COVID hospitalizations in South Africa to drop by 90%.
Weird how those coincidences happen.
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You are not successfully contradicting the post you are responding to. See: [bloomberg.com]
Scientists have cautioned that other nations may have a different experience to South Africa as the country’s population is young compared with developed nations. Between 70% and 80% of citizens may also have had a prior Covid-19 infection, according to antibody surveys, meaning they could have some level of protection. .
. .
The number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in this wave is also being inflated by the fact that milder patients are being admitted because there is room to accommodate them. Many are there for other complaints but are routinely tested, according to health officials.
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and the doctors there all agree that it's an extremely mild strain
Extremely unlikely.
As the doctors in Germany ATM agree: it is just the same as the previous strains.
Ooops.
So no, that "there's no proof" line is just silly.
Exactly. So why do you claim, there is a proof or agreement?
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It's already apparently the major strain in some US states, and there's apparently been one - yes, ONE death attributed to Omicron in the whole US, and that was a guy with severe health problems beforehand.
The US has barely even had it long enough to end in deaths except for one extreme circumstance. The lag between infection and death is more like 2 weeks. But because the infections grow exponentially through the population, there weren't a lot of cases until more like a week ago. We need to give it a little more time before drawing conclusions on what it will do in the US.
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Hospitalizations and deaths lag infection by a significant amount of time, even weeks. It is still too early to say with any certainty that it is milder.
Data out of ZA is presently quite clear and unambiguous. A sufficient amount of time has passed to see a signal from poor health outcomes and deaths reactions if there was one. Thus far zilch. In some areas of ZA Omicron infections are already on a sharp decline.. there this Omicron nothing burger wave is basically coming to an end.
The data coming out of South Africa is suspect because of various other factors, things like a younger population
I don't understand the basis of "younger population" objection. ZA data includes age and while they have a relatively low median age there is no shortage of old people /w 3+
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Hospitalizations and deaths lag infection by a significant amount of time, even weeks. It is still too early to say with any certainty that it is milder.
Data out of ZA is presently quite clear and unambiguous. A sufficient amount of time has passed to see a signal from poor health outcomes and deaths reactions if there was one. Thus far zilch. In some areas of ZA Omicron infections are already on a sharp decline.. there this Omicron nothing burger wave is basically coming to an end.
Deaths lag cases by about four weeks. We *just* passed the four-week mark a couple of days ago, and yesterday, the deaths from COVID jumped by 250% from the day before, and/or from the 7-day moving average, which is just about right on cue.
and simple underreporting.
This does not seem credible. Summary data on hospital utilization and the status of hospitalized patients is maintained centrally and publically available to anyone in the world.
You're assuming first-world levels of medical care. Large parts of South Africa lack that. How many COVID deaths go unreported each day because the patients never made it to a hospital or got tested? Give it three months and look at total mortality numbers; then we'll
Re:Unwise? (Score:4, Interesting)
Deaths lag cases by about four weeks. We *just* passed the four-week mark a couple of days ago
We would have seen the vast majority of deaths by week three.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
If there was a signal it would have long been visible by now both in terms of deaths and hospitalizations.
You're assuming first-world levels of medical care. Large parts of South Africa lack that. How many COVID deaths go unreported each day because the patients never made it to a hospital or got tested? Give it three months and look at total mortality numbers; then we'll have a better idea.
ZA somehow managed to capture over 400 deaths a day at peak of the last wave. The current one is crashing and there is an order of magnitude less daily deaths than peak of last wave. We'll know beyond any doubt in the next couple of weeks from both ZA and UK not three months.
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Deaths lag cases by about four weeks. We *just* passed the four-week mark a couple of days ago
We would have seen the vast majority of deaths by week three. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
If there was a signal it would have long been visible by now both in terms of deaths and hospitalizations.
You should also not ignore the possibility that nearly everyone in this particular surge has already had COVID or a vaccine or both. South Africa is believed to have had a lot more COVID cases than were actually detected (like an order of magnitude more). The CFR may not translate so well into countries where that is not the case.
Re: Unwise? (Score:2)
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...it's possible that the deadliest characteristic of covid (the interplay between adaptive and innate immunity) will be less likely. But we need to see the data, which should be apparent in the next couple of weeks.
What won't be apparent for at least a few months is how prevalent and serious "long Covid" might be with this variant. Even people who are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms might still be kicked in the ass by it during the subsequent year or so. I'm happy to have gotten my third shot - and judging by the way I felt afterwards my immune system definitely responded to it - but I'm still being careful and taking precautions.
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What won't be apparent for at least a few months is how prevalent and serious "long Covid" might be with this variant. Even people who are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms might still be kicked in the ass by it during the subsequent year or so. I'm happy to have gotten my third shot - and judging by the way I felt afterwards my immune system definitely responded to it - but I'm still being careful and taking precautions.
Same here (3rd Moderna scheduled in 2 days). What is very worrying about Long Covid is many people suffering from it seem to stop getting better after a few months, while nowhere near recovered. Also, apparently the numbers of people diagnosed with Long Covid after an _asymptomatic_ infection appear to be significant. For symptomatic cases, it is about as high as 40%.
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That article is total bullshit.
I know people with long COVID, they are not making it up and it is not all in their heads. These were fit and healthy people (ie. aged 40 and under, BMI below 25) when they caught it. They were hospitalised and are still dealing with serious health problems a year later.
I agree, stick to science and data. A WSJ opinion piece does not qualify as either.
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I call bullshit. I suppose I had "Long Cancer". Diagnosed in early 2017, chemo mid year, and carpentry work (surgical excision of the cancer) in the fall. It took 3 or 4 years to return to normal.
I had influenza once. I prayed for death for about two weeks and then the "long flu" kicked in which took about 6 months before it went away.
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You are a damn liar. Long Covid does not only exist, it is a pretty bad problem. The "patient activist" groups that this WSJ writer fantasizes about in his "opinion" article do not exist here. Still about 40% of people with a symptomatic Covid infection have one or several Long Covid associated problems. Most earlier cases did not know what actually hit them, because the condition is hard to grasp, but all of them knew _something_ hit them. Until finally medical research figured it out. And it is not limite
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It's that it tends to go to a different part of the lungs where it's less effective and causes less damage.
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We don't even know how the other strains damage the lungs exactly. It seems like it's the immune system doing the damage in some sort of autoimmune inflammation response. Multiplying more slowly in the lungs may be good but it might not be.
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Indeed. Also, even if milder, until you reach saturation, exponential behavior (infection) kills effects from linear behavior (less severe) every time.
For example, assume 10 times lower percentage of people in hospitals or needing an ICU with Omicron. There are no hard numbers, but it seems unlikely Omicron is that much less severe. Doubling rate is apparently around 2 days (1.5...3 days reported from different places). That means you have the same number of people in hospitals and in ICUs with Omicron just
Explosive growth (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one fast spreading bugger ...
The UK has been breaking the daily case numbers for several days.
The previous record in January 2021 was 68,000, and last Wednesday it was 78,000.
Yesterday, it was 129,900!
Quebec broker the daily record yesterday, and they shut down schools, gyms, and bars.
The USA went from 12% to 73% Omicron in one week. See the CDC Variant Tracker [cdc.gov].
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How many will die and suffer before they realize this has ZERO to do with politics and all about staying alive and healthy.
I do not think these people will ever realize that. It would require accepting facts and they cannot do that. I mean, even Trump got a booster now and they are still screaming all their deranged nonsense.
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The UK has been breaking the daily case numbers for several days. The previous record in January 2021 was 68,000, and last Wednesday it was 78,000. Yesterday, it was 129,900!
Today's figure just went up [theguardian.com] at 90k cases. The 68k for Jan peak and 78k for the 15th figures look right, but I don't see where your 129k number comes from?
Also, for what it's worth, there is still lots of delta cases, so the real growth in Omicron is even worse that you were trying to illustrate.
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I confused two sources of data.
The 129k number is actually from the ZOE symptom tracker, per Dr. John Campbell [youtu.be], so not official tests.
The official figure of tested people is 102,875 [data.gov.uk], although this was for Dec 15th.
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This is one fast spreading bugger ...
Helped along of course by a lot of places taking the view of "we're vaxxed, we're open, COVID is done!" I especially like how the Netherlands has set 3 solid weeks of record breaking case numbers before bothering to enact any rules.
Masks? Who cares! COVID is over. Wait what do you mean we're going into lockdown because the cases have skyrocketed?
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This is one fast spreading bugger ...
Helped along of course by a lot of places taking the view of "we're vaxxed, we're open, COVID is done!" I especially like how the Netherlands has set 3 solid weeks of record breaking case numbers before bothering to enact any rules.
Masks? Who cares! COVID is over. Wait what do you mean we're going into lockdown because the cases have skyrocketed?
Indeed. The sheer disconnectedness expressed in that is staggering. I am starting to believe that Pfizer researcher that recently predicted Covid will run at least until 2024 has a point.
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The 73% figure seems to be incorrect, resulting from a website bug. [theprepared.com] Though the percentage will probably reach and surpass 73% in not too long.
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Dr. May is recovering from covid [cnn.com]. Apparently it's no fun getting infected.
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The whole "triage" debacle is totally fucking stupid. Every hospital does triage all the time and has done so for as long as I can remember -- going on 60 years of personal experiance.
Possible first case... (Score:2)
We have a possible first case at my company in Michigan.
One of our guys called in with Covid symptoms and my money is on a positive test- followed by a whole bunch of sick people like with Delta.
We had 30/100 employees out sick at one point. I'll expect worse with this.
Perhaps the management team will decide to close up again... we'll see.
Yes but (Score:2)
Meanwhile, roughly 0.5 to 1 percent of the covid deniers are gonna die from it. Those odds are really well quantified at this point. And another chunk will be damaged for life ie.
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Meanwhile, roughly 0.5 to 1 percent of the covid deniers are gonna die from it. Those odds are really well quantified at this point.
Those numbers are with hospital and ICU space available. Without it they go way higher. Data from New York seems to indicate 5% dead is realistic.
And another chunk will be damaged for life ie. lung damage, brain fog, long covid.
Not yet sure, but there is an extremely worrying trend where a lot of Long Covid sufferers top getting better after a few months. Damaged for life is a very real possibility. And apparently as much as 40% of people surviving Covid get at least one Long Covid symptom. Some with asymptomatic infections apparently as well.
Re: Yes but (Score:2)
We're getting to the point where (Score:2, Insightful)
the public health establishment is going to be trying to stamp out the common cold, with a straight face.
Hospitalization figures are going down from the Delta surge.
Cases are spiking in highly vaccinated regions of the country because those same places tend to have policies that favor repeat/routine testing of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals in schools and workplaces, and suddenly lots of people either have the sniffles or are close contacts of someone who had the sniffles that turned out to
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So like what is happening now [reuters.com]?
But then, how could we not have a rise in cases with people like this [cnn.com]?
Re: We're getting to the point where (Score:2)
Cowpox (Score:2)
Re: Cowpox (Score:2)
Two years into this (Score:2)
We still don't definitively know the origins of Covid-19 after two years and the WHO is involved in blocking the truth about it.
I think the world is owed an explanation for the millions of lives lost, the trillions in economic and personal damage this has caused.
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Re:Two years into this (Score:5, Informative)
We still don't definitively know the origins
Correct.
and the WHO is involved in blocking the truth about it.
So you think "they" know?
Not sure if your stance is amusing or frightening ...
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We don't know the origins of the common cold, or smallpox, or polio, or just about any infectious disease, after decades and even centuries.
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There is no such thing as justice in the world.
xkcd: "Immunity" (Score:2)
Today's (or there about) xkcd, Immunity [xkcd.com]:
Hat Guy: See, it's good to get infected because it gives you immunity. ... wait.
Guy: Why would I want immunity?
Hat Guy: To protect you from getting inf
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Because who doesn't want shingles [slashdot.org] when they're an adult?
It's coming, but it doesn't matter (directly) (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally am almost out of quarantine from a case of Covid, that I'm sure was Omicron.
I got it from an overnight trip, despite being fully vaccinated, despite even double masking on the plane...
This one will spread far and wide.
However from a health standpoint, it doesn't matter - all mass data we have shows that it's not really increasing hospitalizations anywhere, even as cases spike.
From my own personal experience, I can see why - it was like the mildest cold I ever had, with around one day of a runny nose and that was it.
I wouldn't even know I had it except that I always get tested after travelling out of habit. Which also indicates the numbers you see are wildly under-reported.
What is going to be way, way more harmful than this incredibly mild form of Covid is our response to it, where we treat all forms of Covid as the same.
As I said, I'm still in quarantined but it's obviously stupid to do so, any actual lines ended days ago. For this variant we shouldn't; have the same concerns, or quarantine period. There should be some adjustment for how long after all symptoms are gone someone can reasonably exist quarantine.
Good news though is the immunity boost this provides means that in a month or so all forms of Covid numbers should be dropping off a cliff as this wave washes over and effectively inoculates the remainder of the populations that didn't want to get vaccines.
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I suspect this is a taste of what the end game looks like, with the overall public health impact dwindling over months as more people have *some* form of immunity, either through vaccination, prior infection, or, like you now, the Rolls Royce of COVID immunity: a mild breakthrough infection after vaccination.
This may be why early data suggested omicron was resulting in fewer hospitalizations -- it's been infecting populations with more immunity. Scientific opinion isn't settled on why yet [science.org], so it's a bit pr
Omicron a contagious vaccine? (Score:2)
The death rates seem very low... is Omicron a highly contagious vaccine?
Mod me down if I am ignorant... admittedly don't know much about it.
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OK I view omicron as a booster, I am fully vaxxed. I have read somewhere that fully vaxxed with an infection yields super immunity.
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YAML is shit. If you think otherwise then you are a shit developer.
Just want to thank you for your intense hatred here - I don't give two shits about YAML either way, but your intensity of feeling about a file format makes me nostalgic for the good ol' days of slashdot when the vim vs emacs wars raged and 90% of the stories were about the depravity of Bill Gates and his unholy horde in Redmond.
Won't Get Fooled Again (Score:2)
Re:Fine, I'll say it (Score:5, Interesting)
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Also the most important piece: proportions between death ratios among: unvaccinated testing positive, vaccinated testing positive, vaccinated testing negative.
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This is from Texas [texas.gov] from last month. People who are unvaccinated were 20 times more likely to die than people who are vaccinated, and 13 times more likely to be infected in the first place.
Back in August, the CDC released a report [healthcareitnews.com] saying unvaccinated were 6 times more likely to get infected and 11 times more likely to die after being infecte
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over 300 have had severe heart problems and nearly 200 dead so far in the past year or so alone, more than in the entire rest of the recorded history of the sport's medical records going back to the 1800s.
Oh wait did you mean from Covid or from the shots?
Re: Fine, I'll say it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Vaccinations have worked so far. Anyone claiming otherwise shows you they can't read graphs of hospitalisations and deaths.
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Have lockdowns and masks worked? No.
It depends on how you define "worked." Do you mean completely stopping all further infections? No, of course not. But nothing short of a miracle will. Do you mean slowing down the rate of infection? Yes, it has.
Re: Fine, I'll say it (Score:2)
Re: Fine, I'll say it (Score:5, Insightful)
The prime reasons are:
a) prevent ICUs from being overwhelmed
b) prevent hospital workers from collapsing
c) keep ordinary life going - aka not having half the grocery shops closed because the owner/workers can not work
d) preventing having people die all over the place
--- you do know that some countries/areas had stockpiled coffins full with dead corpses that took weeks to burry/burn?
I guess you did not know ... you must life in a happy wonderland.
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One news source says Omnicron is 3/4 of all new covid cases in the U.S. Also, the first Onmicron death in the U.S. [google.com] was just reported (50+ year old).
This indicates that fear is in high demand but supply is low.
Three shots for me, two for each of my kids. I'm not concerned about this variant at all. And I feel sorry for all those people still hiding in their basements with scarves over their faces. It's like nobody told them there's a vaccine for this now.
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Three shots for me, two for each of my kids. I'm not concerned about this variant at all.
Then you're a fool, and I hope that fact doesn't come back to bite you, and especially your kids.
So far the most important characteristic of Omicron is that it infects even the double-vaxxed, and spread from even one double-vaxxed person to another has been documented. And in six months or so your "three shots" status may be equivalent to "two shots or less" as your immunity decreases. And we don't know yet that "long Covid" won't be a problem even for people who catch Covid but have mild or no symptoms. Bu
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I'm a little less buttoned down and a little less worried, but I still take the threat of Covid seriously.
Indeed. Full vaccination is essential to keep this under control, but it is in no way sufficient. That was before Omicron.
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Fuck how any people in the general public are infected with Herpes?
And that's why I never leave home without wearing a condom.
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They had traces of dihydrogen monoxide in their system I am pretty sure that is what killed them.
That could be... too much dihydrogen monoxide has been known to kill. Just because it's "natural" doesn't mean it's "safe".
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Yeas, suuure. The probably best understood vaccination tech ever available to the human race will have side-effects hidden extremely long-term, a thing that _no_ other vaccine in the history of medicine ever had. Are you mentally challenged or what?
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Yeas, suuure. The probably best understood vaccination tech ever available to the human race will have side-effects hidden extremely long-term, a thing that _no_ other vaccine in the history of medicine ever had. Are you mentally challenged or what?
I sometimes wonder if it is possible for a single day to pass without gweihir calling someone a moron, idiot or retard? Personally I doubt it yet stranger things have happened. If you look at his posting history majority of his posts include berating someone else.
Re: Fine, I'll say it (Score:2)
YMBNH
You must be new here.
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First confirmed death due to omicron in the U.S. by unvaccinated person who previously had covid [cnn.com]. So far, 100% lethality in the U.S. for someone who wasn't vaccinated but also had been infected before.
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It wasn't the left wing trying to stops D&D, video games, comic books, rock and roll, porn, etc. etc. ETC. forever.
Re: Horton was a democrat (Score:3)
TIL Tipper Gore was a Republican
Re: Horton was a democrat (Score:2)
Liz Cheney will be glad to hear it!
Re: panic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Fucking please (Score:2)
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First confirmed death due to omicron in the U.S. [cnn.com], and the person was both unvaccinated and had previously been infected. 100% kill rate doesn't sound like a cold.
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For omicron. Read what I said. First confirmed death by omicron for someone who was both unvaccinated and previously infected.
Re:Fucking please (Score:4, Insightful)
That's...not what kill rate ( or CFR ) means.
Let's presume your premise is correct at the fatalities was unvaxxed. That would only mean that 100% of the people killed by Omicron were unvaxxed ( a misleading statement still, given the sample size, but at least accurate ), but that does not mean Omicron has a 100% kill rate.
Thank you, though; I now understand a bit better why so many people have fallen for our government's horseshit.
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If you think one person dying confirmed from Omicron in the US is a 100% kill rate, you should probably leave the math and statistics to the adults
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Ditto
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100% agreed.
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Yeah. It's all media and Fauci at fault, right? Did you have a look in some hospital recently? My country has a public web API for querying number of covid beds in use. I run a script daily to pull data for my count. It's not pretty. Basically they are running at capacity. ICUs full, DGAI full or 90%, beds with oxygen supply at somewhere between 90% and 100%, tens of beds reprofiled for covid patients, elective ops postponed, 20% of nurses quit during last year (and Omicron did not arrive here yet), but boo
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WAKE UP.
A quote generally shouted by red-faced self-acclaimed scientists while they angrily demand people do their "research" by watching the same Youtube videos they've watched.
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Have you heard of pants?
You don't have the right to run around uncovered. that's long been established.
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<sarcasm>I think it's time to change that law. The way I see it, if the covidiots have the right to run around with their upper horns hanging out of their masks, the rest of us should have the right to run around with our lower horns hanging out of our pants. Fair is fair. :-D</sarcasm>
Re: FUCK YOU (Score:2)
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