That’ll buff right out.
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Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good analogy.
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There’s been several discussions on that point in the coronavirus thread, the link below is merely the latest. In short, that’s not true.
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Epidemiology uses a d100 system rather than 3d6.
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If they named it epsilon, I think we could completely get rid of the Wuhan lab conspiracy and pin the release of Sars-CoV-2 on a cabal of Classics departments around the globe.
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But I thought COVID would magically go away in the summer of 2020, just like Trump told us. . . .
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Yes, a lot like that except before we get to see the results it has to race with any existing strains until it infects let’s say a few million people so our random sampling can even detect it.
It is a lot more like Traveler where many characters die during character generation.
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So I looked it up. It’s a subvariant of Omicron. Seems to not be much different in terms of infection and hospitalization rates. We’ve known about it for a long while. And the big headline thing about it is not all PCR tests can distinguish it from the other strains.
It seems like it’s genetically different enough to potentially be considered a new strain. We seem to have known about it since Omicron first cropped up, I’m seeing the BA2 and BA3 subvariant listed in original articles about Omicron popping up.
It was apparently the majority of COVID cases in India all the way back in December. And the countries listed here as having a lot of BA2 cases, are basically the ones that regularly check for it. Which we apparently only recently figured out the best way to go about.
This may be something that’s just been going along with Omicron the whole time.
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I think I saw that the omicron variant itself has 30+ subvariants so we’re going to end up with variants of variants (the Loki picture is apt), which is not unlike how the “normal flu” works…which I know is optimistic, but I’m considering good news.
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Well any virus is going to have dozens of slight variations popping up in different populations. It’s whether they’re different enough to warrant classification as something different. Or significant enough that we need to pay attention to them.
From what I understand there’s only 3 “lineages” of Omicron worth calling out. There’s BA1, the main one. BA2 which hit headlines in fall as VERY SCARY STEALTH COVID because of the testing quirk, and now may be overtaking BA1 in some countries. BA3 is apparently rare, popped up early in Omicron then faded out.
Flu is different in that there’s 4 whole species operating at any given time. And they all mutate and throw off strains faster, even when they’re not epidemic.
I still don’t think it’s a great comparison point. Particularly since it’s so often pointed to as model for going about our business without dealing with COVID. Like the most recent thing with Omicron where people were all like “Oh great it’s more infectious, just let everyone get it and then it’ll be like the flu”.
I doubt we have much chance of COVID going away in any real sense at this point. Shit’s living in hamsters.
But this is not the flu, and it doesn’t work like the flu. And we should not shrug it off as headed towards normal unconcerning fluness. Especially because the flu should still be pretty concerning.
Before the SARS family of corona viruses cropped up. We were most concerned about the flu doing this to us.
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Thanks for the explaination. I don’t know more than cursory info on infectious diseases (about what most people have learned in the past 2 years) but unlike the antivax nuts, I don’t consider my ignorance a strength and instead defer to people who actually study the stuff.
Didn’t realize 'the flu" was 4 species…wow, that’s a bit mind blowing honestly.
After 2 years, covid hit my house today, showing up on the weekly checks one of the family members gets. Time to see if all my prep was worth it.
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BA.2 IS omicron . Goodness. gonna have to point you all to the furry who is a lead scientist at moderna, aren’t I?
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Came here to post this, you beat me by a few minutes.
That tweet’s from 3 days ago, also!
The flu is ridiculously complex. It’s why I don’t buy the whole “COVID will just be the new flu” thing (also cause the old flu is still here). You don’t need a new flu shot every year because immunity fades out, and it’s not a booster.
It’s a whole new vaccine cause it’s a whole new strain where immunity doesn’t apply. And each year there are multiple epidemic strains running around. You have to predict which part of the world is gonna get which one when, and you have to do it about 2 years out.
Which is very different dynamic from what we’re dealing with.
But part of how we ended up with such good COVID vaccines so fast. With RNA/DNA approach and narrow target on the spike protein. Rolls out of things developed to try and get a universal flu vaccine.
Something that covers all or most flu strains, and protects you for more than one season.
So we’re actively working on breaking that seasonal flu cycle. Even if eradication is unlikely.
I don’t really see why we should point at a more virulent and deadly disease falling into that cycle as an end goal.
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The real question is how dangerous is it? Omicron might have been more infectious, but the symptoms were generally milder. And frankly I don’t care how infectious it is if it’s less likely to kill people.
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I don’t know about that – there’s no real reason why virulence and transmissibility should counteract one another. There’s no reason we couldn’t end up with something that’s both more transmissible AND more deadly. And it has happened: that’s well, the Black Death. Which is a thing that absolutely happened, killed a majority of people wherever it went, and didn’t stop until only people with the right genetic mutation (a specific mutation that granted protection), actually survived.
In fact, the Black Death ‘disappeared’, and I’m thinking it was only because the only people left in most cases were the genetically-resistant. Which was arithmetically equivalent to a 99% vaccination rate. Fun fact: the same mutation seems to grant protection against HIV too.
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I just wish they’d stop saying each new variant was more transmissible than the next. Is it really? Supposedly: Delta > Standard, Omicron > Delta, and now BA.2 > Omicron??
So, BA.2 is the Omicron variant variant?
That wont get confusing.
If it can turn into a chocolate babka? See, that would be a variant I could get behind.
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If by Black Death you mean the specific plague pandemic in the middle ages, which only lasted like a decade. But lead to a roving series of epidemics that kept going for centuries.
So plague absolutely did not disappear. It’s still endemic in many places, including North America where it hides in animal reservoirs like Prairie Dogs. Globally there are hundreds of cases every year.
But the most recent plague pandemic went down at the tail end of the 19th century, landing in San Francisco around 1900-1905 and killing at least 12 million people in India and China.
The whole genetic resistance thing, and even ideas about “herd immunity” by way way of mass infection and death seem to be kind of a myth here. Plague is still considered to have pandemic potential if the right strain pops up in the right conditions.
I think most peg population density, sanitation and which strains or forms are running around as the limiting factors.
No one appears to be saying that about BA.2.
Delta was more transmissible. And Omicron is more transmissible and more vaccine resistant.
Hence all the break through infections and the rush for boosters.
BA.2 is Omicron, it just seems to be displacing the main strain. Doesn’t seem to be altering trends in any of the countries where it’s doing so.
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Sadly no, that’s not consistently true. There are strong evolutionary pressures for a virus to not kill the host quickly. But from the virus’s perspective, killing the host after a few weeks or having the host recover after a few weeks are identical outcomes.
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