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Omicron May Infect Half of Europeans Within Weeks, WHO Says

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 13 2022, @04:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-hope-it's-only-the-legs-half dept.

upstart writes:

Omicron May Infect Half of Europeans Within Weeks, WHO Says:

More than half of Europe's population could become infected with omicron within weeks at current transmission speeds, a World Health Organization official said.

The fast-spreading variant represents a "west-to-east tsunami sweeping the region," Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said in a briefing Tuesday.

He cited the Institute for Metrics and Health Assessment forecast that most Europeans could take it within the next six to eight weeks. The latest Covid surge has resulted in fewer symptomatic cases and lower death rates than in previous waves, fueling optimism that the pandemic may subside.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @06:18PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @06:18PM (#1212455)

    Cholera, Polio, HIV didn't burn out in 5 years.

    Are these respiratory viruses?

    Influenza didn't - it just recombines so much that we don't consider it the same disease year after year.

    Yet continual reassortment rarely leads to pandemics.

    Beware whatever source is pushing these ideas to you. They are wrong, whether intentionally maliciously, or simply incompetently.

    You can't definitively say they are wrong without revealing your own arrogance and disregard for common consensus. The claims remain well founded upon historical observation. [healthline.com]

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 13 2022, @06:46PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 13 2022, @06:46PM (#1212475) Journal

    Cholera, Polio, HIV didn't burn out in 5 years.
     

    Are these respiratory viruses?

    You could tell people to stop the spread of HIV by putting condiments on it. But will they? No way!

    --
    When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @07:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13 2022, @07:16PM (#1212486)

      Your condiments are more effective at preventing AIDS than face diapers are at preventing Covid but the dynamics of natural selection are quite different. If you want relevance, understand that we treat HIV by hitting it with 3 or more antiretrovirals. [nih.gov]

      Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is a treatment regimen typically comprised of a combination of three or more antiretroviral drugs. HAART may also be called antiretroviral therapy (ART) or combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). A key cornerstone of HAART is the co-administration of different drugs that inhibit viral replication by several mechanisms so that the propagation of a virus with resistance to a single agent becomes inhibited by the action of the other two agents.

      This poses an evolutionary dilemma (a triple-bind) preventing mutation to more virulent or transmissible forms.