They did change the requirement to test within 24 hours of return flight. Could go into effect as early as next week
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/02/biden-strategies-omicron-delta/
Looks like the upgraded testing requirement is in this package. Mostly seems like a bunch of fluff.
If the relatively low virulence and high infectiousness turns out to be a thing with omicron then it might turn out to act as a sort of infectious vaccine/booster. Fingers crossed.
1 Like
S gene dropout on the rise in UK. Currently only from a âbackground noiseâ of 0.1% to 0.3% but this is likely to rise further since the most recent daysâ data is still being collated.
https://twitter.com/_nickdavies/status/1466204363110633476
Entire thread does a good job of explaining:
5 Likes
I was wondering about this yesterday. Is immune escape commutative? If Omicron is good at evading Delta antibodies, does that also mean that Delta would be good at evading Omicron antibodies? And is it different for an immunologically naive person vs a previously infected/vaxxed one? In other words, if I catch Omicron, it seems like that would stimulate my body to produce more of the remembered antibodies from the vaccination (plus presumably additional Omicron-specific ones?), refreshing my immunity against that variant as well. But if someone has no prior exposure to COVID, all their body can learn is Omicron, so is it just luck of the draw how well the antibodies their body comes up with match Delta or other variants?
1 Like
Ha, we had to say our fraternityâs letters at the start and at the finish, but we didnât have to leave those letters out of the rest of the alphabet.
Many of my best friends today were my fraternity brothers, but I do regret my association with the institution. Fraternities are a super bad idea.
The RNA vaccines are just teaching the immune system about the spike, whereas in an infection the immune system could develop antibodies against any part of the virus. So intuitively you would think that an infection by any particular variant might provide more robust immunity against future or past variants than a vaccine thatâs tailored to just a particular part of the virus. But you raise a lot of good questions that the ancient memory of my college immunology class canât really answer.
1 Like
Also, reports out of Oslo seem to speak to how infectious this thing might be (link is in Norwegian, sorry):
Cliffs:
- 50 - 60 people infected at Christmas do (1 confirmed omicron, rest as yet unknown)
- 0 employees infected so far (not all swabs tested at time of report)
- Only fully vaxxed allowed to attend.
1 Like
Antibody generation is essentially random, and you donât necessarily make just one. You could make some that respond to a part of the virus that is conserved between delta and omicron, and you can make some that are hyper-specific to one or the other. Your cells just tend to remember whatever it arrived at that happened to work last time, so that could be either or both kinds and some that are in between.
I think itâs a reasonable hypothesis that reinfection with omicron (or any variant, really) will act as a booster, but weâve also seen data that generally the vaccines are a little more effective than past infection, so Iâd also hypothesize that this holds true for omicron as well, that a specific vaccine will offer more protection than infection with it in particular.
1 Like
Holy fuck no I wonât be enough with the AIDS stuff. Are you going to complain about a different disease in every fucking thread?
Get a grip on yourself.
AND BEFORE ANYONE COMES AT ME THEY BETTER HAVE LOST AT LEAST AN OLDER BROTHER TO AIDS.
3 Likes
New Omicron case confirmed in Minnesota. No reported link to travels to Africa, so (not surprisingly) looks like we have some community spread. The person did recently attend an Anime convention in NYC. Unclear to me whether, based on the timeline, they would have been contagious at the time (or if they could have picked up the virus at the Con), but it could be noteworthy if a cluster pops up in Manhattan.
Guess it was only a matter of time before we saw community spread in the US.
2 Likes
This is more along the lines of asking people to stop calling each other the R word or â â â â or things like that where itâs just a better look overall if we eliminate it from our collective vocabulary.
8 Likes
There is a fairly commonly used econometric technique that was invented in 1980 with an unfortunate acronym of AIDS
2 Likes
Hochul said New York is taking proper precautions and is not overreacting to the omicron variant arriving in the U.S. She said bars and restaurants are packed in Midtown, Manhattan, which shows people feel safe enough to return to their normal social lives. âWeâre encouraging that,â the governor said.
My county in NY declared a state of emergency citing increases in COVID hospitalizations that threaten to overwhelm them such that theyâll have to cease elective procedures. Businesses urged to go remote for anyone able.
My wife and I both promptly received messages from our employer acknowledging the state of emergency, but because the order was issued due to hospitalizations and not rising cases (they are rising ldo), they strongly urge folks to get vaccinated (no mandate) and keep coming on in. Lulz.
1 Like
Businesses arenât falling for that âhave people work remotelyâ thing after having such a hard time forcing people back to the office once already.
2 Likes
Boosted, finally. Went with Moderna after a double Pfizer.
23 Likes
I went double Moderna for my first two. Iâm about to book my booster and it looks like I will have the option of Pfizer or Moderna. Does it really matter? Is there any advantage to boosting with Pfizer after starting off with Moderna?
2 Likes