New heavily mutated variant B.1.1.529 in South Africa raises concern

Christine said:
Talking about the effect of the Omicron variant on vaccinated patients:


"South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’"

"Dr Angelique Coetzee noticed otherwise healthy patients showing unusual symptoms and worries how the new variant might hurt the elderly"


From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...r-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/


Also discussed in this twitter thread:


https://twitter.com/x/status/1464622927333232640
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I'm intrigued by the word "unusual", and hopeful by the word "mild"...

We shall see how this plays out...
 
^ I'm also hopeful "mild" means mild going forward. That is at least encouraging, because I believe we are a long way from defeating the virus.
 
Dawg52 said:
I do and I will be glad to get a booster on an annual basis. But I'm not planning on taking booster shots every 6 months.
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The choice may not be there providing that it is a pandemic, not a seasonal flu.

I believe we will need to adapt something in order to survive. Changes are the main motivation for becoming more adaptive.
 
martyp said:
I totally understand why average people think vaccines cause mutations. They see vaccines get rolled out by the billions and THEN new variants pop up. How could the obvious cause & effect be otherwise? Here though is another example of nature not always being exactly how it appears. Where a little education goes a long ways. Where, dare I say it (?), we can benefit from listening to experts. Maybe acknowledge that some things really are complicated. If the belief that vaccines cause mutations persist leading to people rejecting vaccines then we would be doing exactly the wrong thing.
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+1

Vaccines have nothing to do with a specific, random mutation happening. Mutations are random. But, vaccines may dampen spread of the near/close mutations. Meaning the ones that are very close to Alpha are probably defeated by the Alpha-generation vaccines. So in public health space we're more likely to actually see the wider variations.

AGAIN, Mu and Omicron would exist with or without the vaccines.
 
Yes. Let's see, what will be the flavor of this year's seasonal influenza?

It will never be defeated, only dealt with.
 
My hope is that although this virus started out strong, it will eventually become like the seasonal flu in its severity and in its transmissibility. I guess being more transmissible is fine too as long as it's not so severe.
 
Rocket Man said:
Actually, it is my understanding that mutated forms of the virus develop in response to the vaccines. Sort of a survival of the fittest kind of thing.
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Vaccines don't kill the virus - people do. Vaccines are target practice for our immune systems. When Covid-19 arrives after someone has been vaccinated or fought off Covid-19 before, it walks into an ambush.
 
tmm99 said:
I'm intrigued by the word "unusual", and hopeful by the word "mild"...

We shall see how this plays out...
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I do think things still need to get sorted out. Additional reporting from a Soweto hospital notes they are seeing mostly 20s and 30s, with moderate to severe symptoms (expected for severity as these are hospital treatments and as reported by an ICU head). Claims from the hospital that these cases were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. But, no mention of deaths, thus far.

Article notes one early breakout in a university blossomed into thousands and then spread to Johannesburg.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/covid-variant-threat-worldwide-scramble-81417682

There were reports that two of the tested in one of the European countries were vaccinated but had sought out testing as they had been in SA. They turned out to be positive, but asymptomatic. Along with the other article referenced, this seems to show that vaccination may be offering some benefits here.
 
Gumby said:
More from Dr. Coetzee:

https://qz.com/2095354/what-are-the-symptoms-of-the-omicron-variant/?utm_source=YPL
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Interestingly, this article cuts out the detail others have. "Mild" includes severe fatigue and in one case, pulse rate disturbance. I think it is mild in a doctor's experience after seeing people in such bad shape. To me, it still sounds like something you don't want.

https://www.newsweek.com/doctor-fir...t-says-symptoms-are-mild-south-africa-1653740

They complained of feeling exhausted and later tested her patients, about two dozen of whom tested positive for COVID while showing symptoms associated with the new variant.
According to the doctor, mostly healthy men turned up "feeling so tired," about half of whom were unvaccinated.


Dr. Coetzee told The Telegraph: "We had one very interesting case, a kid, about six years old, with a temperature and a very high pulse rate, and I wondered if I should admit her. But when I followed up two days later, she was so much better."
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Christine said:
Talking about the effect of the Omicron variant on vaccinated patients:


"South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’"

"Dr Angelique Coetzee noticed otherwise healthy patients showing unusual symptoms and worries how the new variant might hurt the elderly"


From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...r-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/


Also discussed in this twitter thread:


https://twitter.com/x/status/1464622927333232640
Click to expand...
Some items worth noting:

SA population is quite young on average.

24% of SA population fully vaccinated, so low.

I see from other articles that 40% of the adult population is (fully?) vaccinated, but the number of children in the country is very high, so it pulls the % population fully vaccinated to a much lower number.
 
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Gumby said:
Just to help those who may need a little more convincing, here is another article from March 2020, describing how virologists were already identifying mutations in the COVID virus in an attempt to trace the spread of the disease at that time. Yes, the virus was already mutating prior to March 2020, long before there were any vaccines, because, as others have eloquently explained, that's what viruses do all by themselves - they mutate in the course of reproduction.

https://www.science.org/content/art...-coronavirus-moves-they-re-easy-overinterpret
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+1

Yes. The vaccines just shine a light on the mutations.

From what I have read there have probably been a number of mutations that have gone nowhere. Perhaps the vaccine was even more effective on some. Others, may not have had the chops to out muscle older mutations when it comes to infecting humans. Some may have been so deadly they killed off their victims to soon and eliminated their chance of spreading.

If it's not rocket science. Probably because it's more complicated.
 
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When it comes to "mild" or not, we'll know based on hospitalizations.

Ultimately, that's all that matters, and is the main reason we were asked for all the sacrifices ("don't overwhelm the system").

This doctor has anecdotes. The numbers will ultimately tell the story. We see it in each of our state charts. Cases reported are one thing, hospitalizations are another.
 
JoeWras said:
When it comes to "mild" or not, we'll know based on hospitalizations.

Ultimately, that's all that matters, and is the main reason we were asked for all the sacrifices ("don't overwhelm the system").

This doctor has anecdotes. The numbers will ultimately tell the story. We see it in each of our state charts. Cases reported are one thing, hospitalizations are another.
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The number of hospitalizations and the trend line of those is the principal metric our governor has been using with respect to how the state responds to COVID. I think it is the most useful, with the least "noise".
 
From what I have read so far SA has had a jump in cases but not hospitalizations
 
Mutations happen randomly, but if your replication environment removes some, but not other variants, you are selecting for the variants not removed. One case of this kind of selection is convalescent plasma. Person "A" fights off alpha, then their plasma is put in person "B". Now B's alpha is gone, but the environment is ripe for a mutation to replicate wildly because there's more biologic room left without having alpha blowing up. This was a big discussion earlier in the pandemic. The more replication you have, the higher the chances of a mutation. And, as mentioned, the overwhelming mutations (copy errors) are broken, and go nowhere. But that occasional one, especially in a host that offers an environment where the mutated copy can be prolific, well, there you go... it's the next thing in the news.
 
JoeWras said:
When it comes to "mild" or not, we'll know based on hospitalizations.

Ultimately, that's all that matters, and is the main reason we were asked for all the sacrifices ("don't overwhelm the system").

This doctor has anecdotes. The numbers will ultimately tell the story. We see it in each of our state charts. Cases reported are one thing, hospitalizations are another.
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Overwhelming the system isn't just about the hospitals. It's about the entire healthcare system. I work in urgent care and we have been absolutely destroyed by COVID. At the beginning of the pandemic when things were mostly locked down, our volumes fell 80%. That had a huge financial impact on operations. They ultimately closed one of our locations and fired 2 providers and numerous staff members.



When Delta hit, our volumes skyrocketed to 40-50% over pre-pandemic levels, and that has absolutely been overwhelming. And it's been made worse by the fact that about 20% of healthcare workers have left the field as a result of COVID so we're seeing record volumes while also being significantly understaffed. Everyone is overworked, exhausted, and burned out.


It's not just hospitalizations that matter when you're talking about overwhelming the system.


I'd also add that we're able to keep most people out of the hospital today thanks to monoclonal antibody therapy. But again, that doesn't mean the system isn't overwhelmed. There's a finite number of patients the monoclonal program can accommodate each day. If there are more patients being referred than they can handle, that's another measure of an overwhelmed system.
 
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I cannot fathom how selfish some people are.

Dutch military police on Sunday said they had arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, and were attempting to flee the country.

The police known as the Marechausse said in a statement the pair were arrested "in an airplane that was about to depart."
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https://news.trust.org/item/20211128222343-3uey1/
 
That’s horrible about the couple exposing everyone on the plane. I hope they are charged with a crime.
 
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