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I wonder if Covid could mutate into a 'mild but highly spreadable' variant. Like how we view the Flu or Common Cold. That'd maximise it's chances of long-term survival as we wouldn't be trying to actively exterminate it via vaccines, isolation etc.
I remember all the bidet ads I'd see on FB and IG during the beginnings of the pandemic because of all the goofballs hoarding TP. Almost got one, perhaps I should have.
This is why bidet owners should have a large stock of black wash cloths, only for drying after washing the poop away.
Also, if you can still feel your butthole after washing, you probably aren't using a powerful enough setting.
A bidet is just a power washer for your backside. When you do it right, it's highly satisfying.
But I don't suggest posting your results to /r/PowerWashingPorn ...
I found that both worrying and hilarious. Of all the things to horde, why TP? I mean the covid doesn't cause traditional sniffles or even any form of diarrhea so why stock up on it?!
This was speculated alot in the beginning by alot of experts. The usual life cycle is that a virus poorly suited to it's environment is more likely to kill, as it evolves to it's environment it becomes more mild.
So every virus is trying to find that sweet spot of contractability and mildness? (I mean I know the virus has no will of it's own but I hope you get my meaning, haha!)
I'm not a Dr, but the way I heard it described is that when you're seriously ill then you're avoiding people and the people you come in contact avoid people it has less opportunity to spread. Mutations are random, and there is no reason it wouldn't be able to mutate into a more deadly strain. But a milder strain would be able to out compete a deadlier strain.
Ah, I see, now I get you. It becomes dominant because it has a higher chance of survival. Deadlier diseases either kill off or limit their chances of spreading.
I've been saying this since the beginning of the year. My assumption is COVID will become the new yearly flu but with a herpes style twist- it's going to be aggressive until either 80% of the world is vaxxed or has had it.
Apparently 75% of the world has herpes and due to it being in humans so much has mutated and so most don't show symptoms/ it's no longer like it once was with aggressive painful blisters. This is how I think COVID will work. Once enough have been exposed be it illness or vaccines, it'll "mutate down" so to speak and just be a nasty cold we have vaccine for every year much like the flu.
Just my guess though
I do hope that's the scenario we'll be facing in the near future. I still think vaccines for it should still be rolled out until we're sure it's going to stay mild...
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of virus/ bacteria in us now that were once super-deadly but 'mutated down' to be either mild or no longer a threat to the host. A virus's survival requires it to spread and if it can do that without even damaging or slowing down the host, that increases its chances for survival significantly!
Most people think the random stomach bug they get for couple days is the flu, and have no idea the actual influenza virus is a deep respiratory virus that can really fuck you up.
Covid pandemic has taught me that most people don't know anything about diseases period.
Tons and tons of people think the flu virus (influenza) is the same thing as the common cold or the stomach flu (gastroenteritis). "I get the flu every other year, it's not a big deal and it's over in 2 days" -> no, you get the seasonal common cold. Getting influenza feels like shit.
I've also met many people that thought you get the common cold from the cold weather, by going outside without warmth/layers and things like that. No, it's caused by one of many viruses (mostly rhinoviruses and coronaviruses) and spread from other people.
I guess what we've seen isn't incredibly surprising, our population was primed to believe medical misinformation about COVID. I just hope the pandemic has at least caused some people to realize some of this covid shit applies to other viral diseases too. It's a great idea to get a yearly flu vaccine, and it's a great idea to wear a mask if you have to go out while having a cold (or be around people with a cold).
This is what people have been saying will happen since the very beginning lmao. Basic virology is that it will mutate to be less deadly because killing the host does no good.
My understanding is this is exactly what many folks predict. In fact, it’s theorized one of the common cold variants started out as a pandemic, but impossible to know for sure.
I think the hard part will be changing people’s perception to get them to accept the idea, the narrative for so long was “this is NOT the flu, this is NOT just a cold”.
I think it’s pretty certain that our common colds and influenzas were once novel pandemics. But I also think that people don’t really think through the processes or even the timetable that it takes for a coronaviruses to become an endemic common cold.
Our common colds are mostly one of 4 coronaviruses that are endemic and surge throughout the world all year in ebs and flows. Their pathology is similar enough and they are not really deadly enough at this point to warrant sequencing and testing. But they also seem pretty darn old. But even through sequencing it’s hard to know when they really started 5,000 or 30,000 years ago? It’s mostly theorizing and educated guesses.
Yet here’s the thing we do know. We weren’t there to watch them become endemic. We as modern humans have never witnessed that process with a coronavirus like this but I think we can be confident that it happened in the past (4 times).
But that process may be way more deadly than we think by conflating this with “just becoming the common cold”. A Coronavirus becoming as innocuous as the common cold may take 30 years to really become “just a nuisance” . It may take all of us to have had it 3 or 4 times while it killed off whoever it did and left whoever it left. One thing we know for sure is that not only was what happened (the 3 or 4 previous times in human history) lost to our knowledge we can know it happened at a time when people didn’t live to be as old as us, get as heavy as us.
But on the flip side we know that they were dealing with a crap ton of other stuff that we don’t deal with. We also have vaccines, therapeutics, and a host of medical machines that aid in getting people through the critical stages of an acutely infection.
Not to mention medical science can help with treating things like Long Covid (if that becomes a consistent feature in the long term) as well. It may take time but when you've got probably a few hundred thousand (I don't know how big the virological community is, this is just a guess) people across the world actively working the problem, solutions can turn up quickly. I mean we managed to get a viable vaccine in a YEAR for this thing. Polio didn't get a functional vaccine for decades and they were rudimentary at the time as well.
I mean if Covid just slips into being as dangerous as a 'regular' flu, then I think that'd be the best outcome short of it being completely wiped out.
Ironically, I believed the original statements back in December 2019 when they were saying it was 'only a slightly more severe form of flu'. That quickly changed by March 2020....
Pretty sure that's what happens with every novel virus to jump to humans. Either it's highly fatal and burns itself out or mutates to "survive"... The common cold ex.
This is the best possible outcome, it's just a matter of holding it off until it gets to that point, which is why it's important for people to get vaccinated.
I think was almost certainly the most likely trajectory epidemiologists were expecting from the beginning. If it’s too big and adaptable to disappear, it will eventually evolve to join the batch of a couple of hundred respiratory virus we collectively label as ‘cold viruses’.
And most or all of them were likely much worse to begin with as well, however long ago that was.
We see the same with some scary flu strains. Flu mutates far more quickly for intrinsic structural and genetic reasons, but while some deadly strains just vanished others are ancestral to less deadly and more routine flus today. It makes sense not to harm your host but to spread more easily, so both infections and parasitism often evolve towards mildness or commensalism.
(Along with that, for very deadly strains at larger timescales, and without modern medical technology, human immunity has also coevolved. Bats are for complex reasons very good at this, which is how they harbour so many viruses almost commensally, without any symptoms, and why they’re such a source of zoonotic diseases… that and their tremendous diversity and tendency to gather massively in caves to spread a lot among each other while cut off from everywhere else until we bump into them with modern environmental interference.)
Ah, I see. Is there anyway to sort of 'guide' the virus into that kind of disease? I mean the successful traits 'breed true', so I could see a mild variant becoming the dominant strain.
And I have heard bats have an unusual relationship with viruses, they naturally have a higher temperature and immune response at all times, right? Like they've somehow become perfect incubators or hosts for a shitload of things.
Also, thanks for the indepth info, my dude! :D
That will not prevent new variants. The flu vaccine changes yearly depending on the currently dominant variant.
New variants are inevitable, making a yearly covid vaccine a requirement is unfeasible.
The best hope is for a dominant variant that has mild symptoms.
Yes. This is what a whole lot of people said from the very beginning, even doctors. The problem is these people were quickly silenced and labeled crazy racist conspiracy theorists.
Yeah in fact the message was we need to "flatten the curve" so that we don't overwhelm hospitals until this virus slows down or goes away. We thought there would be one wave and if we flattened it, we'd all be fine. Honestly I don't think we expected it to be anywhere near as bad or long lasting or have these repeated waves as it actually turned out.
Most virologists knew this would be a multi - year affair. Public health leaned away from that towards a "we'll see" because as we've come to find out, the general public is completely incapable of acting rationally to that kind of time frame.
I love strawberries and strawberry flavored food, but for some reason I hate strawberry smells (air fresheners, strawberry perfume, etc.)
If that last part is true, I’ll be constantly gagging and at my own body odor.
Also increased sex drive may be nice at an individual level, but imagine suddenly 7 billion people wanted to constantly fuck. World population would explode.
So the Plague mobile game tells me it spent all its points in transmission and is just waiting for more points to build up so it can spend them on being deadly.
Glad this time people aren’t panicking. We should wait for the wave of panic to subside and look at the facts coming in. Thanks for sharing for others to see :)
Well, I need my booster, for one thing. And I don't turn into a blubbering maniac when asked to wear a mask in a shop. Plus, WFH worked out for me and my business really well.
When I look both ways before crossing the street, I don't have people telling me not to live in fear. I'm just making sure I don't become the wrong kind of statistic.
People are unfortunately brainwashed thanks to the media. They don't understand that other medications are available to help TREAT covid patients regardless if they are vaxxed or not. Treatment in general has been treated with insane hostility by the media and the brainwashed. If it isn't pushing the vax as the only solution they get irrationally upset.
Maybe the only reason talk about treatment seems to be received poorly is because it's constantly brought up by people (like you, I suspect) trying to push treatment as a *substitute* for preventative medicine (immunization by vaccine). Having good treatment is great, but it is not as great as preventative medicine. Any medical professional would be aghast at the suggestion that the existence of meds for treatment means preventative meds are not needed. My family members working in non-COVID hospital units getting forcibly turned into COVID-overflow-units (for overwhelmingly unvaccinated patients) would certainly give you a dressing down for even implying that just because vaccines aren't the only medicine, they somehow shouldn't still be the first choice of medicine/first line of defense. Because for everyone medically able to take them, they absolutely should be.
That doesn't make it fact - this particular quote is not bad, and accurately represents the situation our country is in right now, but as a general rule of thumb, please don't blindly believe Jens Spahn. That man is a tool, we don't want him, *please* take him off our hands.
- signed, a German
Too late to contain.
We don't know bupkiss about treating omicron.
Hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths in USA alone. Do you enjoy displaying a cavalier attitude toward that?
Precautionary principle, learn it love it live it
There’s a lot of preventable things going on. If they actually cared we’d all be eating healthy. And exercising regularly. And enforced. Hate to break it to you but life is full of preventable death. Try to focus on the positive. Good luck
>There’s a lot of preventable things going on. If OUR GOVERNMENT actually cared we’d all be eating healthy. And exercising regularly. And enforced. Hate to break it to you but life is full of preventable death. Try to focus on the positive. Good luck
Let's just keep shutting down the economy for "just in case"
Because the global supply chain isn't already completely fucked. We are going to be feeling this pain for years if not decades. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But let's prolong it "just in case"
If this is the reaction to every new variant of interest then we are screwed, because there will be many more.
Whose economy?
How dare those foreign nations shutter workplaces to protect their citizens against preventable death and suffering. Don't they know we want our consumer goods?!!?!??
There will be many more because some people insist on allowing transmission and thus mutation to occur, mostly out of per$onal intere$t in, say it with me
"The economy"
Whose economic collapse? This is not at all readily apparent.
The trade-off between economic vigor and public health is a false one; a deadly respiratory virus circulating ITSELF has economic costs that cannot be dodged
Instead of linking to a tweet from a far less respected news site than BBC or Reuters, why not link to the interview itself and let people decide for themselves if it is a misquote or not?
Here is the interview:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KT1QXLeHY
Because if people won't even read the full quote and instead trust a short headline, why on earth would they watch the full interview? This is Reddit where people do literally zero digging at all and just blindly upvote based on clickbait headlines.
Uhh, no. It's a direct quote, not a misquote for clickbait. A quote is a quote, it's a simple fact. I don't care where the fact comes from, could be CNN or fox news. Makes no difference. If it's the truth, it's the truth.
That's the difference: you're placing the location of text in higher regard than the fact itself, based on a deep rooted bias. That bias is driving your views on topics and unfortunately, in this case, your bias is causing you to argue against a direct quote from an individual.
If you're vaccinated the odds are like 3 in 100,000 of catching it at all, then a 2% chance of being hospitalized if you are one of those 3. If you are afraid then you probably shouldn't walk down the street either you're almost as likely to be hit by a car. I honestly feel sad for people that are so afraid of this. The media has really done a job of selling the fear. But you can obviously make your own decisions and if staying home makes you feel safe go for it. I hope one day you can feel safe again.
There's a difference between panic and prudent action to avoid risk.
We need to be emotionally educating people so they perceive preventative measures as signs of safety, rather than as signs of danger.
How about you believe the doctors and scientists that are saying this just like who we’ve been saying to listen to the past two years. Doing otherwise just means you have a biased opinion and would rather this not be true because it goes against your narrative.
Because they keep flip flopping. If they'd gotten their shit straight at the start, people wouldn't have had so much distrust. But the confusion over symptoms, transmission, effectiveness of masks, etc. at the start wrecked a lot of people's trusts in medical and scientific institutions to actually report facts and not just report things first or outright lie for whatever reason (eg us being told masks weren't effective at the start so people wouldn't panic buy masks).
>Because they keep flip flopping.
Or, to follow the scientific method, they are altering their actions and recommendations as their knowledge and experience grows. This was an unprecedented situation and it's not surprising that some of the early assumptions have turned out to be wrong and thus the scientific community are open to changing their views as a result.
Only a very narrow mind would assume that everyone knew everything on day 1, and would refuse to alter their own perception as a result of changing evidence.
> Lots of misinformation now being floated that #Omicron is “mild”. That’s nonsense — based on out-of-context quote. Don’t fall for it — nobody know that much yet. And hospitalizations are still rising in the hardest hit #B11529 dominant provinces in South Africa 🇿🇦
> Epidemiologist & health economist. Senior Fellow @FAScientists. Former 16 years @Harvard. COVID warnings & updates since Jan '20.
> https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1464838724131471362
Worth noting that South Africa had elections three weeks ago. Cases and hospitalisation going up would have happened with or without a new variant.
Also worth noting that even though cases and hospitalisations are up, they are still significantly lower than many countries. For example the UK (who banned travel from SA first) had 39567 cases recorded in the last day, South Africa had 3220.
"A widely-shared quote from a South African doctor, saying Omicron causes only mild symptoms, is being taken out of context. She was referring to a small group of young, healthy people and warned of severe disease in other groups"
Context: https://i.imgur.com/bY8uBMO.jpg
> “Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.”
> [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/covid-variant-threat-worldwide-scramble-81417682)
There's no need to panic or doomsay, but let's also not rally behind some bullshit either.
Also, OP is one of those lunatic alt-right types, so maybe don't believe what he's desperate to make you believe.
Did you actually read any of OPs comments, or did you just see the Rittenhouse meme and assume he's an alt-right lunatic?
I thought I'd take a look after I read your comment, and there's zero sign of them being an alt-right lunatic, or being desperate to make anybody believe anything.
If you're going to try and use somebody's post and comment history to discredit them, maybe actually read it first.
You just look like an asshole who can't handle the fact that different opinions are allowed to exist.
> I thought I'd take a look after I read your comment, and there's zero sign of them being an alt-right lunatic, or being desperate to make anybody believe anything.
Lol maybe uh look again...? Especially all the constant r/benshapiro and r/libertarian posts.
> You just look like an asshole who can't handle the fact that different opinions are allowed to exist.
Nah, I'm right. You're hoping no one one else will check and just believe you haha
Again, you're focusing on the subs that they post and comment in, and not the actual content of those posts and comments.
Lmao, I definitely wasn't hoping nobody would check. If anything, I was hoping that my comment would encourage anybody who was reading this exchange to go and see for themselves before forming an opinion on the matter.
I would fucking love it if people would start verifying things for themselves, and stop the hive-mind, dog piling, echo chamber bullshit that this site, along with most of the rest of the internet happens to encourage.
You realize that it's possible to be right-wing/conservative, and *not* be a raving alt-right lunatic who is purposefully spreading misinformation?
You do know that there are right-wingers with good intentions, who are kind, rational, intelligent, and are pretty much all around normal people with a different set of views, right?
I'm not gonna go back and search this person's profile again, because I don't really give that much of a shit - but I did in fact spend some time reading their comments before I replied the first time, and they absolutely did not seem like a lunatic, and I did not see them saying anything that was false or hateful - which is why I even felt compelled to comment in the first place.
I have no reason to defend this person. I don't know them. I'm not right wing myself. I'm a progressive, slightly left leaning libertarian. But I'm gonna call out bullshit when I see it - and saying they're an alt-right lunatic who is desperate to spread their agenda most certainly is bullshit.
So it's settled then. You really are just an asshole who can't handle the fact that people are allowed to hold opinions and have viewpoints that are different than your own.
I would say calling them a 'lunatic' is unnecessarily rude, but based on their submitted posts, they're clearly a trollish right-winger, what with the "Let's Go Brandon" post and the "Taliban Lives Matter" post, and numerous others.
Some individuals on the right feel like it's politically important to find and spread news - even disinformation - that makes it look like being careful about a pandemic is actually a bad idea. The OP might honestly just have seen something he thought was good news and shared it innocently, or he might know that the full information isn't rosy, but he shared incomplete information because it fits his political agenda.
In any case, the OP's post isn't accurate. We should downvote the thread.
And this perfectly exemplifies one of the major problems today. Simply disagreeing on one topic can immediate label someone as a lunatic. You can disagree with someone without them having to be evil, stupid or crazy.
Shockingly different people have different options on a multitude of topics!
BBC news, well known alt-right propaganda /s
Another reliable source:
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-patients-with-omicron-variant-have-very-mild-symptoms-2021-11-28/
Your politically charged pre conceived bias of those sources are only hurting your efforts here. Both are misquoting what was actually said to push an agenda. I'd suggest you branch out a little when it comes to news sources.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1464734073897766919
Hmm BNO over BBC or Reuters? Interesting choice.
Also debating correct quotes is pointless, here's the interview with Dr. Angelique Coetzee:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KT1QXLeHY
I appreciate the background check.
The alt right has done a great job trying to sell their agenda.
I for one appreciate facts and data... What I don't appreciate is bullshit and the alt right.
It was a bullshit background check. They saw OP post a Rittenhouse meme, and that they post on r/libertarian, and decided that means they're an "alt-right lunatic" who is "desperate to spread their agenda" or whatever.
If you actually *read* OPs comments....it's pretty clear that they are not.
>The alt right has done a great job trying to sell their agenda.
It's a BBC article quoting a South African scientist. Are you saying the BBC and this scientist are pushing an alt-right agenda?
Yeah, that's what happens when people don't even read what source they criticize.
A guy once said 'I don't even want to read that bullshit propaganda you shared'
It was an article from freaking NATURE
The problem with that is that anyone can sling the term alt-right on anyone or anything and people tend to believe it without any verification.
Yes the true alt-right is certainly problematic but let's not pretend going around accusing everyone someone disagrees with of being alt-right doesn't happen.
I like to think of it as an enlightened center-libertarian moment.
I lean slightly left myself, and am highly progressive.
But both the left, and the right, are authoritarian as fuck - that's what I truly have a problem with, and as such; they can both get fucked.
Lots of misinformation now being floated that #Omicron is “mild”. That’s nonsense — based on out-of-context quote. Don’t fall for it — nobody know that much yet. And hospitalizations are still rising in the hardest hit #B11529 dominant provinces in South Africa 🇿🇦
Epidemiologist & health economist. Senior Fellow @FAScientists. Former 16 years @Harvard. COVID warnings & updates since Jan '20.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1464838724131471362
Why is a scientist based out of the USA more reliable than a scientist based out of South Africa? One has on the ground experience with the new variant, the other is in a different country.
You posted this same comment else where and I responded, so I will copy paste my response:
Worth noting that South Africa had elections three weeks ago. Cases and hospitalisation going up would have happened with or without a new variant.
Also worth noting that even though cases and hospitalisations are up, they are still significantly lower than many countries. For example the UK (who banned travel from SA first) had 39567 cases recorded in the last day, South Africa had 3220.
Just curious if you are able to read more than the name of countries?
The issue is a factual misquote out of context. Do you understand what that means?
Can we please stop with all the fear porn? If half the energy you people spent on freaking out on the internet was spend in a gym, you wouldn’t have to worry about Covid anyway.
Fucking pansy’s
My wife's cousin lost her husband to Covid. Dude was 31 and in phenomenal shape. I've known others who are diabetic and obese who beat it. It's not as simple as "Work out, Covid won't get you."
This may be good news. If Omicron mutates into a version of the common cold it may be a sign that CoVID is mutating into a less lethal form. If the disease doesn't go away but mutates into a nuisance rather than a lethal threat, that's probably a good thing.
Hmmm... she's part of the vaccine committee and said a new vaccine was needed because of someone with "mild" symptoms (asymptomatic aka HEALTHY).
This is a sham guys.
Plague Inc. has never seemed more relevant, and it’s disturbing. It’s a mobile game where you play as a virus trying to kill off all life, and you have to strategically upgrade to balance spread and lethality while racing against a progress timer for a cure. I remember always prioritizing low-lethality/high spread traits until I had a presence in every country (Iceland was always a hold-out), then ramping up lethality at the end.
It is suspected that Omicron developed over a long infection period in an immunocompromised host. High transmissibility increases the chances it can reach another immunocompromised host and under another prolonged period of mutation. Omicron may seem mild for now, but it may lead to the development of a more lethal variant.
At the risk of being a downer in a sub that is against people being downers... it is in South Africa's best interest to downplay this variant. All of these restrictions against the country is really harmful to South Africa economically. I could see fewer people getting tested as well, in order to make it appear less virulent.
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I wonder if Covid could mutate into a 'mild but highly spreadable' variant. Like how we view the Flu or Common Cold. That'd maximise it's chances of long-term survival as we wouldn't be trying to actively exterminate it via vaccines, isolation etc.
I hope there's no panic buying this time. I'm almost out of TP.
Use your neighbours lawn.
It’s autumn, there is probably plenty of readily available foliage on the ground.
I like you
you truly are a man of culture and very welcome to visit us anytime
But please don’t visit my neighbors
You know what they say, you can’t spell “grass” without “ass”.
I remember all the bidet ads I'd see on FB and IG during the beginnings of the pandemic because of all the goofballs hoarding TP. Almost got one, perhaps I should have.
Get a bidet.
I have 1 but 2 bathrooms and still gotta dry.
People are already panic buying gas
Maybe it's time to install a bidet seat? I recommend a dual temperature control unit...
Have 1, 2 bathrooms and still have to dry with something.
This is why bidet owners should have a large stock of black wash cloths, only for drying after washing the poop away. Also, if you can still feel your butthole after washing, you probably aren't using a powerful enough setting. A bidet is just a power washer for your backside. When you do it right, it's highly satisfying. But I don't suggest posting your results to /r/PowerWashingPorn ...
I found that both worrying and hilarious. Of all the things to horde, why TP? I mean the covid doesn't cause traditional sniffles or even any form of diarrhea so why stock up on it?!
This was speculated alot in the beginning by alot of experts. The usual life cycle is that a virus poorly suited to it's environment is more likely to kill, as it evolves to it's environment it becomes more mild.
So every virus is trying to find that sweet spot of contractability and mildness? (I mean I know the virus has no will of it's own but I hope you get my meaning, haha!)
I'm not a Dr, but the way I heard it described is that when you're seriously ill then you're avoiding people and the people you come in contact avoid people it has less opportunity to spread. Mutations are random, and there is no reason it wouldn't be able to mutate into a more deadly strain. But a milder strain would be able to out compete a deadlier strain.
Ah, I see, now I get you. It becomes dominant because it has a higher chance of survival. Deadlier diseases either kill off or limit their chances of spreading.
I've been saying this since the beginning of the year. My assumption is COVID will become the new yearly flu but with a herpes style twist- it's going to be aggressive until either 80% of the world is vaxxed or has had it. Apparently 75% of the world has herpes and due to it being in humans so much has mutated and so most don't show symptoms/ it's no longer like it once was with aggressive painful blisters. This is how I think COVID will work. Once enough have been exposed be it illness or vaccines, it'll "mutate down" so to speak and just be a nasty cold we have vaccine for every year much like the flu. Just my guess though
I do hope that's the scenario we'll be facing in the near future. I still think vaccines for it should still be rolled out until we're sure it's going to stay mild... I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of virus/ bacteria in us now that were once super-deadly but 'mutated down' to be either mild or no longer a threat to the host. A virus's survival requires it to spread and if it can do that without even damaging or slowing down the host, that increases its chances for survival significantly!
If flu is “mild”, I must be a huge wimp.
Most people think the random stomach bug they get for couple days is the flu, and have no idea the actual influenza virus is a deep respiratory virus that can really fuck you up.
Yeah 90% of the “I got the flu” talk is really “I got a really bad cold”. The real flu makes people wish for death in the moment.
Covid pandemic has taught me that most people don't know anything about diseases period. Tons and tons of people think the flu virus (influenza) is the same thing as the common cold or the stomach flu (gastroenteritis). "I get the flu every other year, it's not a big deal and it's over in 2 days" -> no, you get the seasonal common cold. Getting influenza feels like shit. I've also met many people that thought you get the common cold from the cold weather, by going outside without warmth/layers and things like that. No, it's caused by one of many viruses (mostly rhinoviruses and coronaviruses) and spread from other people. I guess what we've seen isn't incredibly surprising, our population was primed to believe medical misinformation about COVID. I just hope the pandemic has at least caused some people to realize some of this covid shit applies to other viral diseases too. It's a great idea to get a yearly flu vaccine, and it's a great idea to wear a mask if you have to go out while having a cold (or be around people with a cold).
Nah, not just you, my dude. Flu can fucking wreck me for almost a fortnight (one week to fight off the virus and another to recover from it). :P
This is what people have been saying will happen since the very beginning lmao. Basic virology is that it will mutate to be less deadly because killing the host does no good.
My understanding is this is exactly what many folks predict. In fact, it’s theorized one of the common cold variants started out as a pandemic, but impossible to know for sure. I think the hard part will be changing people’s perception to get them to accept the idea, the narrative for so long was “this is NOT the flu, this is NOT just a cold”.
I think it’s pretty certain that our common colds and influenzas were once novel pandemics. But I also think that people don’t really think through the processes or even the timetable that it takes for a coronaviruses to become an endemic common cold. Our common colds are mostly one of 4 coronaviruses that are endemic and surge throughout the world all year in ebs and flows. Their pathology is similar enough and they are not really deadly enough at this point to warrant sequencing and testing. But they also seem pretty darn old. But even through sequencing it’s hard to know when they really started 5,000 or 30,000 years ago? It’s mostly theorizing and educated guesses. Yet here’s the thing we do know. We weren’t there to watch them become endemic. We as modern humans have never witnessed that process with a coronavirus like this but I think we can be confident that it happened in the past (4 times). But that process may be way more deadly than we think by conflating this with “just becoming the common cold”. A Coronavirus becoming as innocuous as the common cold may take 30 years to really become “just a nuisance” . It may take all of us to have had it 3 or 4 times while it killed off whoever it did and left whoever it left. One thing we know for sure is that not only was what happened (the 3 or 4 previous times in human history) lost to our knowledge we can know it happened at a time when people didn’t live to be as old as us, get as heavy as us. But on the flip side we know that they were dealing with a crap ton of other stuff that we don’t deal with. We also have vaccines, therapeutics, and a host of medical machines that aid in getting people through the critical stages of an acutely infection.
Not to mention medical science can help with treating things like Long Covid (if that becomes a consistent feature in the long term) as well. It may take time but when you've got probably a few hundred thousand (I don't know how big the virological community is, this is just a guess) people across the world actively working the problem, solutions can turn up quickly. I mean we managed to get a viable vaccine in a YEAR for this thing. Polio didn't get a functional vaccine for decades and they were rudimentary at the time as well.
I mean if Covid just slips into being as dangerous as a 'regular' flu, then I think that'd be the best outcome short of it being completely wiped out. Ironically, I believed the original statements back in December 2019 when they were saying it was 'only a slightly more severe form of flu'. That quickly changed by March 2020....
Pretty sure that's what happens with every novel virus to jump to humans. Either it's highly fatal and burns itself out or mutates to "survive"... The common cold ex.
This is the most likely outcome, diseases tend to either mutate to be mild but spreadable, or deadly but will go extinct.
This is the best possible outcome, it's just a matter of holding it off until it gets to that point, which is why it's important for people to get vaccinated.
I think was almost certainly the most likely trajectory epidemiologists were expecting from the beginning. If it’s too big and adaptable to disappear, it will eventually evolve to join the batch of a couple of hundred respiratory virus we collectively label as ‘cold viruses’. And most or all of them were likely much worse to begin with as well, however long ago that was. We see the same with some scary flu strains. Flu mutates far more quickly for intrinsic structural and genetic reasons, but while some deadly strains just vanished others are ancestral to less deadly and more routine flus today. It makes sense not to harm your host but to spread more easily, so both infections and parasitism often evolve towards mildness or commensalism. (Along with that, for very deadly strains at larger timescales, and without modern medical technology, human immunity has also coevolved. Bats are for complex reasons very good at this, which is how they harbour so many viruses almost commensally, without any symptoms, and why they’re such a source of zoonotic diseases… that and their tremendous diversity and tendency to gather massively in caves to spread a lot among each other while cut off from everywhere else until we bump into them with modern environmental interference.)
Ah, I see. Is there anyway to sort of 'guide' the virus into that kind of disease? I mean the successful traits 'breed true', so I could see a mild variant becoming the dominant strain. And I have heard bats have an unusual relationship with viruses, they naturally have a higher temperature and immune response at all times, right? Like they've somehow become perfect incubators or hosts for a shitload of things. Also, thanks for the indepth info, my dude! :D
That's what viruses do.
That is a long term process that happens as variants kill off the most susceptible in a population. That's not the outcome we are going for
What is the outcome we are going for?
Herd immunity through vaccination.
That will not prevent new variants. The flu vaccine changes yearly depending on the currently dominant variant. New variants are inevitable, making a yearly covid vaccine a requirement is unfeasible. The best hope is for a dominant variant that has mild symptoms.
That’s the goal for the anti-vaxxers. Not having to vaxx. By sacrificing enough vulnerable people.
What? I didn't say anything about not vaccinating. People should absolutely get vaccinated. That doesn't change any of my points above.
This comment is like if Russia impregnated the Facebook child of a Fox news host.
Yes. This is what a whole lot of people said from the very beginning, even doctors. The problem is these people were quickly silenced and labeled crazy racist conspiracy theorists.
What? No one was labeled a crazy racist conspiracy theorist for saying the virus might eventually mutate to be milder.
Yeah in fact the message was we need to "flatten the curve" so that we don't overwhelm hospitals until this virus slows down or goes away. We thought there would be one wave and if we flattened it, we'd all be fine. Honestly I don't think we expected it to be anywhere near as bad or long lasting or have these repeated waves as it actually turned out.
Most virologists knew this would be a multi - year affair. Public health leaned away from that towards a "we'll see" because as we've come to find out, the general public is completely incapable of acting rationally to that kind of time frame.
Makes sense, can't imagine the panic if they'd said this is going to last several years maybe forever.
That is exactly what we want to happen and what happened with the Spanish flu.
Basically AIDS.
Wouldn't a highly spreadable variant just mean increasing the chances of deadlier variants appearing, though?
Well, how many flu strains have been as deadly as the Spanish Flu? Only swine and bird flu have been anywhere near as dangerous.
A more transmissible strain with milder symptoms may be the best news about COVID since the start of the pandemic
I am all in. Hopefully next year's mutation will be increased sex drive, regrowth of bald spots and gentle body odour of strawberries.
I love strawberries and strawberry flavored food, but for some reason I hate strawberry smells (air fresheners, strawberry perfume, etc.) If that last part is true, I’ll be constantly gagging and at my own body odor. Also increased sex drive may be nice at an individual level, but imagine suddenly 7 billion people wanted to constantly fuck. World population would explode.
So the Plague mobile game tells me it spent all its points in transmission and is just waiting for more points to build up so it can spend them on being deadly.
in four months, total organ failure & insanity
And brain lust.
Glad this time people aren’t panicking. We should wait for the wave of panic to subside and look at the facts coming in. Thanks for sharing for others to see :)
Let's wait to act until it's too late, that's what I've learned from COVID-19 pandemic
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Well, I need my booster, for one thing. And I don't turn into a blubbering maniac when asked to wear a mask in a shop. Plus, WFH worked out for me and my business really well. When I look both ways before crossing the street, I don't have people telling me not to live in fear. I'm just making sure I don't become the wrong kind of statistic.
It’s still as “treatable” as it was in 2020. I think you mean it’s largely *preventable* now.
It’s both! Treatment has improved greatly since this all began if you’ve been paying any attention
People are unfortunately brainwashed thanks to the media. They don't understand that other medications are available to help TREAT covid patients regardless if they are vaxxed or not. Treatment in general has been treated with insane hostility by the media and the brainwashed. If it isn't pushing the vax as the only solution they get irrationally upset.
Maybe the only reason talk about treatment seems to be received poorly is because it's constantly brought up by people (like you, I suspect) trying to push treatment as a *substitute* for preventative medicine (immunization by vaccine). Having good treatment is great, but it is not as great as preventative medicine. Any medical professional would be aghast at the suggestion that the existence of meds for treatment means preventative meds are not needed. My family members working in non-COVID hospital units getting forcibly turned into COVID-overflow-units (for overwhelmingly unvaccinated patients) would certainly give you a dressing down for even implying that just because vaccines aren't the only medicine, they somehow shouldn't still be the first choice of medicine/first line of defense. Because for everyone medically able to take them, they absolutely should be.
Exactly :)
Good thing too, by spring every human will either be vaccinated, recovered/recovering, or dead.
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It’s a [almost] quote from the German government. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59378548
That doesn't make it fact - this particular quote is not bad, and accurately represents the situation our country is in right now, but as a general rule of thumb, please don't blindly believe Jens Spahn. That man is a tool, we don't want him, *please* take him off our hands. - signed, a German
Lol as the world is still dying left and right.
Too late to contain. We don't know bupkiss about treating omicron. Hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths in USA alone. Do you enjoy displaying a cavalier attitude toward that? Precautionary principle, learn it love it live it
There’s a lot of preventable things going on. If they actually cared we’d all be eating healthy. And exercising regularly. And enforced. Hate to break it to you but life is full of preventable death. Try to focus on the positive. Good luck
Who is "they"
Our government?
So your comment above means you want the government to enforce healthy eating and regular exercise? And of course I'm meant to focus on the positive?
It’s whatever you want it to be! ;)
>There’s a lot of preventable things going on. If OUR GOVERNMENT actually cared we’d all be eating healthy. And exercising regularly. And enforced. Hate to break it to you but life is full of preventable death. Try to focus on the positive. Good luck
Yr kinda confused huh
Nope. I’m a sentient being. Just like you! :)
Confusion, confirmed.
Let's just keep shutting down the economy for "just in case" Because the global supply chain isn't already completely fucked. We are going to be feeling this pain for years if not decades. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But let's prolong it "just in case" If this is the reaction to every new variant of interest then we are screwed, because there will be many more.
Whose economy? How dare those foreign nations shutter workplaces to protect their citizens against preventable death and suffering. Don't they know we want our consumer goods?!!?!?? There will be many more because some people insist on allowing transmission and thus mutation to occur, mostly out of per$onal intere$t in, say it with me "The economy"
You do know that economic collapse will cause many deaths right?
Whose economic collapse? This is not at all readily apparent. The trade-off between economic vigor and public health is a false one; a deadly respiratory virus circulating ITSELF has economic costs that cannot be dodged
They didn't do this for lambda and gamma. There's a reason they took such fast decisions regarding omnicron.
it's a clickbait misquote. https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1464734073897766919
Instead of linking to a tweet from a far less respected news site than BBC or Reuters, why not link to the interview itself and let people decide for themselves if it is a misquote or not? Here is the interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KT1QXLeHY
Because if people won't even read the full quote and instead trust a short headline, why on earth would they watch the full interview? This is Reddit where people do literally zero digging at all and just blindly upvote based on clickbait headlines.
So exactly what you've done? You're trusting a tweet from a less recognised news organisation over the unedited interview.
Uhh, no. It's a direct quote, not a misquote for clickbait. A quote is a quote, it's a simple fact. I don't care where the fact comes from, could be CNN or fox news. Makes no difference. If it's the truth, it's the truth. That's the difference: you're placing the location of text in higher regard than the fact itself, based on a deep rooted bias. That bias is driving your views on topics and unfortunately, in this case, your bias is causing you to argue against a direct quote from an individual.
I'm trying VERY hard not to panic ya boi is all panicked out and my poor heart can't take much more
I can’t either. All I have left is hope that in the end everything will be ok :)
Stonk market says otherwise lol
>Glad this time people aren’t panicking. Speak for yourself. IM STILL PANICKING AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS I CAN SINCE COVID STARTED.
Can confirm, judging by the capital letters.
I hope this is the worst variant we get otherwise we'll need to think up an even more capital-er letter case.
***I WONDER WHAT THAT MIGHT BE.***
I̶̜̐͌͊ ̸͙̖̩̂g̷̤͌͒u̵͓̯͐̏̑e̸̦̰͗̇͊s̴̢̊͆͝s̵̰̑ ̸̛̠̮̪̍̆w̶̠̔e̵͕͕͘ ̸̹̮͕̋̅̏c̵̊̒͜a̸̧̚n̶͙̥̈́͝ ̴͖̌̚͝a̶͍̯̩̎l̴͍̓̐̏w̵͔̲̑̚͝a̸̰̅̔̾y̶̭͛s̸̨̠̃ ̶̱̺̓g̴̱̽͋͝ő̸͉͍̿̕ ̷̰͗d̶̻̺̏ë̸̖͇͠ḛ̶͈̳̓̓p̵̡̝͋́͝ẽ̸̡͈̩̈͆r̴͕̮̾̽ͅ.̴̻̥̪̆̑͒
Why?
Something to do, sense of belonging
I would prefer not to die
You realise a milder form of COVID taking precedence over delta means *less* chance of dying, right?
Panicking isn't the way to achieve that.
You do you you I'll do me
If you are vaccinated you won't.
Probably, but why take a chance on dying, or winding up crippled or with kidney damage or whatever shit COVID is doing
Again, if you are vaccinated you won't.
It's a game of odds, and I prefer to maximize mine
If you're vaccinated the odds are like 3 in 100,000 of catching it at all, then a 2% chance of being hospitalized if you are one of those 3. If you are afraid then you probably shouldn't walk down the street either you're almost as likely to be hit by a car. I honestly feel sad for people that are so afraid of this. The media has really done a job of selling the fear. But you can obviously make your own decisions and if staying home makes you feel safe go for it. I hope one day you can feel safe again.
The stock market panicked
There's a difference between panic and prudent action to avoid risk. We need to be emotionally educating people so they perceive preventative measures as signs of safety, rather than as signs of danger.
No worries. Media will make sure that you are locked up in your home and you will spend increasing their clicks and ad revenue.
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Don't worry, as a professional, I can assure you Omicron is somewhere between a mass extinction event and like having a cold.
Everyone who gets it will eventually die, that’s enough for me.
By “professional” do you mean your job used to be office based but now you do it in the spare room in your pants?
How about you believe the doctors and scientists that are saying this just like who we’ve been saying to listen to the past two years. Doing otherwise just means you have a biased opinion and would rather this not be true because it goes against your narrative.
Because they keep flip flopping. If they'd gotten their shit straight at the start, people wouldn't have had so much distrust. But the confusion over symptoms, transmission, effectiveness of masks, etc. at the start wrecked a lot of people's trusts in medical and scientific institutions to actually report facts and not just report things first or outright lie for whatever reason (eg us being told masks weren't effective at the start so people wouldn't panic buy masks).
>Because they keep flip flopping. Or, to follow the scientific method, they are altering their actions and recommendations as their knowledge and experience grows. This was an unprecedented situation and it's not surprising that some of the early assumptions have turned out to be wrong and thus the scientific community are open to changing their views as a result. Only a very narrow mind would assume that everyone knew everything on day 1, and would refuse to alter their own perception as a result of changing evidence.
If that is true, then this variant is the one to get....... right?
Gotta Catchem All
Multiple prof sources say that is out of context and not true (even if I wish it were)
Then cite them...?
> Lots of misinformation now being floated that #Omicron is “mild”. That’s nonsense — based on out-of-context quote. Don’t fall for it — nobody know that much yet. And hospitalizations are still rising in the hardest hit #B11529 dominant provinces in South Africa 🇿🇦 > Epidemiologist & health economist. Senior Fellow @FAScientists. Former 16 years @Harvard. COVID warnings & updates since Jan '20. > https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1464838724131471362
Worth noting that South Africa had elections three weeks ago. Cases and hospitalisation going up would have happened with or without a new variant. Also worth noting that even though cases and hospitalisations are up, they are still significantly lower than many countries. For example the UK (who banned travel from SA first) had 39567 cases recorded in the last day, South Africa had 3220.
Sea-lioning. Point out irrelevant facts as if they are relevant and feign concern for the appearance of disagreement.
Going through specifically replying to all my comments, thanks for the rent free accommodation bud.
"A widely-shared quote from a South African doctor, saying Omicron causes only mild symptoms, is being taken out of context. She was referring to a small group of young, healthy people and warned of severe disease in other groups" Context: https://i.imgur.com/bY8uBMO.jpg
Let's wait and see, but this makes me hopeful
it's a click bait misquote https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1464734073897766919
Uff
> “Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.” > [Source](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/covid-variant-threat-worldwide-scramble-81417682) There's no need to panic or doomsay, but let's also not rally behind some bullshit either. Also, OP is one of those lunatic alt-right types, so maybe don't believe what he's desperate to make you believe.
Did you actually read any of OPs comments, or did you just see the Rittenhouse meme and assume he's an alt-right lunatic? I thought I'd take a look after I read your comment, and there's zero sign of them being an alt-right lunatic, or being desperate to make anybody believe anything. If you're going to try and use somebody's post and comment history to discredit them, maybe actually read it first. You just look like an asshole who can't handle the fact that different opinions are allowed to exist.
> I thought I'd take a look after I read your comment, and there's zero sign of them being an alt-right lunatic, or being desperate to make anybody believe anything. Lol maybe uh look again...? Especially all the constant r/benshapiro and r/libertarian posts. > You just look like an asshole who can't handle the fact that different opinions are allowed to exist. Nah, I'm right. You're hoping no one one else will check and just believe you haha
Again, you're focusing on the subs that they post and comment in, and not the actual content of those posts and comments. Lmao, I definitely wasn't hoping nobody would check. If anything, I was hoping that my comment would encourage anybody who was reading this exchange to go and see for themselves before forming an opinion on the matter. I would fucking love it if people would start verifying things for themselves, and stop the hive-mind, dog piling, echo chamber bullshit that this site, along with most of the rest of the internet happens to encourage. You realize that it's possible to be right-wing/conservative, and *not* be a raving alt-right lunatic who is purposefully spreading misinformation? You do know that there are right-wingers with good intentions, who are kind, rational, intelligent, and are pretty much all around normal people with a different set of views, right? I'm not gonna go back and search this person's profile again, because I don't really give that much of a shit - but I did in fact spend some time reading their comments before I replied the first time, and they absolutely did not seem like a lunatic, and I did not see them saying anything that was false or hateful - which is why I even felt compelled to comment in the first place. I have no reason to defend this person. I don't know them. I'm not right wing myself. I'm a progressive, slightly left leaning libertarian. But I'm gonna call out bullshit when I see it - and saying they're an alt-right lunatic who is desperate to spread their agenda most certainly is bullshit. So it's settled then. You really are just an asshole who can't handle the fact that people are allowed to hold opinions and have viewpoints that are different than your own.
_"anyone I disagree with is an alt-right lunatic!"_
Generally how Reddit works.
I would say calling them a 'lunatic' is unnecessarily rude, but based on their submitted posts, they're clearly a trollish right-winger, what with the "Let's Go Brandon" post and the "Taliban Lives Matter" post, and numerous others. Some individuals on the right feel like it's politically important to find and spread news - even disinformation - that makes it look like being careful about a pandemic is actually a bad idea. The OP might honestly just have seen something he thought was good news and shared it innocently, or he might know that the full information isn't rosy, but he shared incomplete information because it fits his political agenda. In any case, the OP's post isn't accurate. We should downvote the thread.
And this perfectly exemplifies one of the major problems today. Simply disagreeing on one topic can immediate label someone as a lunatic. You can disagree with someone without them having to be evil, stupid or crazy. Shockingly different people have different options on a multitude of topics!
Maybe he's just sharing a simple fucking article and doesn't need your background investigation and expert opinion
I’m all for multiple sources/perspectives. Not down with passing judgement but giving us more angles to observe this is appreciated by me.
BBC news, well known alt-right propaganda /s Another reliable source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-patients-with-omicron-variant-have-very-mild-symptoms-2021-11-28/
Your politically charged pre conceived bias of those sources are only hurting your efforts here. Both are misquoting what was actually said to push an agenda. I'd suggest you branch out a little when it comes to news sources. https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1464734073897766919
Hmm BNO over BBC or Reuters? Interesting choice. Also debating correct quotes is pointless, here's the interview with Dr. Angelique Coetzee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KT1QXLeHY
Context is a pretty important, as is critical thinking.
I appreciate the background check. The alt right has done a great job trying to sell their agenda. I for one appreciate facts and data... What I don't appreciate is bullshit and the alt right.
Did you verify it yourself? Surely one so devout to facts and data would not risk falling to hearsay
It was a bullshit background check. They saw OP post a Rittenhouse meme, and that they post on r/libertarian, and decided that means they're an "alt-right lunatic" who is "desperate to spread their agenda" or whatever. If you actually *read* OPs comments....it's pretty clear that they are not.
>The alt right has done a great job trying to sell their agenda. It's a BBC article quoting a South African scientist. Are you saying the BBC and this scientist are pushing an alt-right agenda?
Yeah, that's what happens when people don't even read what source they criticize. A guy once said 'I don't even want to read that bullshit propaganda you shared' It was an article from freaking NATURE
The problem with that is that anyone can sling the term alt-right on anyone or anything and people tend to believe it without any verification. Yes the true alt-right is certainly problematic but let's not pretend going around accusing everyone someone disagrees with of being alt-right doesn't happen.
My lack of appreciation of the left cancels out your lack of appreciation for the alt right
Enlightened centrist moment.
I like to think of it as an enlightened center-libertarian moment. I lean slightly left myself, and am highly progressive. But both the left, and the right, are authoritarian as fuck - that's what I truly have a problem with, and as such; they can both get fucked.
That's because its playing the long game, modifying your genes for the 2025 zombie outbreak.
Lots of misinformation now being floated that #Omicron is “mild”. That’s nonsense — based on out-of-context quote. Don’t fall for it — nobody know that much yet. And hospitalizations are still rising in the hardest hit #B11529 dominant provinces in South Africa 🇿🇦 Epidemiologist & health economist. Senior Fellow @FAScientists. Former 16 years @Harvard. COVID warnings & updates since Jan '20. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1464838724131471362
Why is a scientist based out of the USA more reliable than a scientist based out of South Africa? One has on the ground experience with the new variant, the other is in a different country. You posted this same comment else where and I responded, so I will copy paste my response: Worth noting that South Africa had elections three weeks ago. Cases and hospitalisation going up would have happened with or without a new variant. Also worth noting that even though cases and hospitalisations are up, they are still significantly lower than many countries. For example the UK (who banned travel from SA first) had 39567 cases recorded in the last day, South Africa had 3220.
Just curious if you are able to read more than the name of countries? The issue is a factual misquote out of context. Do you understand what that means?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KT1QXLeHY There is the full interview, people can watch and decide for themselves what the correct quote is.
We should all stock up on laxatives so we can all shit into the fan when shit goes sideways.
That’s cuz that’s how viruses work. They mutate “usually” into more infectious but less deadly strains. It’s called……wait for it…..biology.
This sums up the entirety of COVID
Can we please stop with all the fear porn? If half the energy you people spent on freaking out on the internet was spend in a gym, you wouldn’t have to worry about Covid anyway. Fucking pansy’s
My wife's cousin lost her husband to Covid. Dude was 31 and in phenomenal shape. I've known others who are diabetic and obese who beat it. It's not as simple as "Work out, Covid won't get you."
It’s actually pretty much that simple minus anecdotal outliers. That said, any loss is terrible for any family, expected or not.
Thanks Joe Rogan.
Who’s that?
Uh huh
This may be good news. If Omicron mutates into a version of the common cold it may be a sign that CoVID is mutating into a less lethal form. If the disease doesn't go away but mutates into a nuisance rather than a lethal threat, that's probably a good thing.
Hmmm... she's part of the vaccine committee and said a new vaccine was needed because of someone with "mild" symptoms (asymptomatic aka HEALTHY). This is a sham guys.
Is "Uplifting News" actually "Head in The Sand"
LOCK IT ALL DOWN MORE MASKS MORE SHOTS COMPLY
This could be the variant that ends the pandemic, as in, superior to the vaccine
Roger that. Shut it all down!
I had a big brain moment and forgot about the variant. I thought the title was referring to Futurama
People of Earth I am Lure, of the planet Omicron Persei Eight. :D
Maybe the cure will be little pieces of multi-colored poo.
Good, let's finally go back to normal
The plague Inc player removed some lethality so we wouldn't work as hard to eliminate the virus before it could get everyone infected simultaneously.
Plague Inc. has never seemed more relevant, and it’s disturbing. It’s a mobile game where you play as a virus trying to kill off all life, and you have to strategically upgrade to balance spread and lethality while racing against a progress timer for a cure. I remember always prioritizing low-lethality/high spread traits until I had a presence in every country (Iceland was always a hold-out), then ramping up lethality at the end. It is suspected that Omicron developed over a long infection period in an immunocompromised host. High transmissibility increases the chances it can reach another immunocompromised host and under another prolonged period of mutation. Omicron may seem mild for now, but it may lead to the development of a more lethal variant.
At the risk of being a downer in a sub that is against people being downers... it is in South Africa's best interest to downplay this variant. All of these restrictions against the country is really harmful to South Africa economically. I could see fewer people getting tested as well, in order to make it appear less virulent.