Omicron

[nosuchreality]

Good, bad, who knows.  Big unknown, if you get Omicron, does it protect you from getting Delta.  Or is getting Omi like getting a vaccine, with the possibility that your Omi hit is really loaded with Delta.

The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the coronavirus.?Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold. They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by SARS-CoV-2, also known as the novel coronavirus, and the HCoV-229E coronavirus, which can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code with HCoV-229E has not been detected in other novel coronavirus variants, the scientists said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/04/omicron-coronavirus-transmissible-cold-variant/

The Minnesota man who contracted the omicron variant of the coronavirus met up with about 35 friends at a New York City anime convention and about half have now tested positive for the coronavirus, a state health official said Friday.
https://www.startribune.com/friends...ted-positive-official-says/600123623/[/quote]

 

[eyephone]

South Africa Covid-19 cases have nearly quadrupled since Tuesday, with Omicron fueling the surge

South Africa's Covid-19 cases have nearly quadrupled in the last four days, underscoring concerns around how contagious the new coronavirus Omicron variant might be as the country enters its fourth wave of the pandemic.

On Friday, South Africa reported on 16,055 new Covid-19 cases, up from 4,373 new cases on Tuesday.

Friday's numbers bring the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases past the 3 million mark since the start of the pandemic, according to data released by the country's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/03/africa/south-africa-omicron-cases-surge-intl/index.html

 

[CalBears96]

Now Omicron has spread to 12 states. It's still too early to say that it's milder, but so far it seems to be not as deadly as Delta.

 

[nosuchreality]

South Africa has jumped from 500 daily cases to 5000.  They've also jumped their testing from 25,000 to 40,000.  Jury is out on is it explosive growth or actually getting tests to people that need it.

Remember back on the 29th Amsterdam report that 61 of 600 passengers on two South Africa flights tested positive.  Only 13 had Omicron, which means 48 did not and had other covid.

How does a country with a 1% positivity rate manage to get 10% of the people on a flight being positive?