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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @12:19AM (1 child)
That study doesn't say what you are implying it says. If India had achieved herd immunity in Dec 2020 then they wouldn't have had waves in 2021. Which they had. That study indicates herd immunity against the ancestral strain which is NOT what we mean by herd immunity in a conversation about Omicron or other variants.
Can we get a "logic fail" mod please? Did I say cross-immunity was impossible? No, I said herd immunity for n-CoV-19 is impossible because of the rate of mutagenesis.
Maybe you've missed the part where immunocompetent people have had second and third cases of COVID-19? Maybe you've missed the part where the mutation rate per host is high enough, and the # of humans in the world is high enough, that the derease in the exponent from exposure is overwhelmed by the increase in the exponent from mutated advantages?
It's not fucking hard math.
And you prove that you're a troll by equivocating exposure to vaccine and to virus. We have lots of evidence showing that vaccine immune response is stronger than post-infectious. First page of google scholar results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 14 2022, @01:41AM
Again, you fail to understand basic words. [medicalxpress.com]
Vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies will not stop you catching Omicron. If you're claiming they do, you are spreading misinformation... again!