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Omicron May Infect Half of Europeans Within Weeks, WHO Says

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 13, @04:32AM   
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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Original Submission

• Re:Herd immunity? (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13, @07:16PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13, @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.

  Parent

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