Omicron, the 15th letter in the Greek alphabet
The big, global news over the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. should have come as a surprise to no one.
SARS-CoV-2 spun off a new, even-more infectious variant – this one named Omicron – sparking what has now come to be the customary hysteria.
“New virus variant emerges in southern Africa, stokes worldwide fears,” the Boston Globe emailed its readers almost immediately.
Having said that, it added that the “medical experts, including the World Health Organization, warned against any overreaction before the variant that originated in southern Africa was better understood.”
In fact, if South African doctors are to be believed, there are signs here of a milder variant, not a more severe one.
The patients “were mostly healthy men who turned up ‘feeling so tired’. About half of them were unvaccinated,” the British daily said.
“Dr. Coetzee, who was briefing other African medical associations on Saturday, made clear her patients were all healthy and she was worried the new variant could still hit older people – with co-morbidities such as diabetes or heart disease – much harder,” it added.
Inevitability of death
But everything hits old people harder, and especially those with diabetes, heart disease, obesity or other chronic illnesses. The WHO has reported that during U.S. flu seasons from 1993 to 1997:
- People over 65 were hospitalized three times more often than younger adults;
- Of that population of old people, 80 percent already suffered from one chronic disease and 50 percent suffered from two.
- Five percent of those over 65 hospitalized with flu died in the hospital, 20 to 30 percent died within one year; and 33 percent were more disabled after discharge than before with about half of those never recovering.
Over the most recent five-year period ending in 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates the flu killed about 151,000 people in the U.S., or about three times as many Americans as died in combat in the 20 years the U.S. spent mired in Vietnam (to use one of those whacky apples-and-oranges comparisons favored by the mainstream media.)
Nearly all of those who died in Vietnam were young. Most of those who died of influenza were old.
At a societal level (or what an ecologist would call the population level), it’s not good to judge the threat of a virus by what it does to old people, because old people are destined to die soon anyway.
This might sound cavalier, but as one now in the 65-plus group, I can say it. I have no desire to die and still often act a foolish teenager while engaged in certain sports, but I can now see death out there on the horizon.
It happens to all of us, but it is worst when it happens to young people often still supporting families or looking to make something of life on this planet.
Evolution
And if SARS-CoV-2 has spawned a variant that is kinder to them it is a good and not necessarily unexpected turn of events. Some of the world’s top virologists writing in Nature this summer predicted this could be a possibility.
- “The first – and most worrisome -scenario is that we will not gain rapid control of this pandemic and thus will face a future with ongoing manifestations of severe disease combined with high levels of infection that, in turn, could foster further evolution of the virus. Vaccinations and previous infection could achieve long-term herd immunity, but we will need a very broad application of vaccines worldwide combined with comprehensive disease surveillance by accurate and readily available diagnostic assays or devices.
- “A second and more likely scenario is the transition to an epidemic seasonal disease such as influenza. Effective therapies that prevent progression of COVID-19 disease (for example, monoclonal antibodies that reduce hospitalization and death by 70–85 percent) may bring the burden of SARS-CoV-2 infection to levels that are equivalent or even lower than influenza. However, we should remember that the annual mortality burden of influenza, in non-pandemic years, is estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths, with up to 650,000 all-cause deaths globally, comprising around 2 percent of all annual respiratory deaths (two thirds among people who are 65 years and older). This is an extremely important health burden and equates to a relatively ‘optimistic’ view of the future of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- “A third scenario is the transition to an endemic disease similar to other human coronavirus infections that have a much lower disease impact than influenza or SARS-CoV-2. There is, however, limited data on the global burden of disease by common human coronaviruses and as noted above, it is not possible to predict with confidence whether further adaptations of SARS-CoV-2 to humans will increase or decrease its intrinsic virulence.”
The third scenario there is the best to hope for and it is not unreasonable to believe it could happen. SARS-CoV-2 could evolve into another virus causing the “common cold” as did HCoV-229E, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-OC43 before it.
But the scientists from the U.S., Switzerland and Australia admitted they cannot predict the future.
“At a first glance, SARS-CoV-2 seemingly has a capacity to evolve that outstrips that seen in the other human coronaviruses,” they wrote. “We do not know whether this reflects a lack of comparable data for the other viruses that have entered the human population long ago, a recent zoonotic origin that has resulted in a strong selection pressure for adaptation to transmission and/or immune evasion in the human host.
“Indeed, recent studies have shown that seasonal coronaviruses (such as HCoV-229E) have also experienced antigenic evolution in recent decades. The overall uncertainty of these parameters makes it difficult to accurately predict the future post-pandemic equilibrium between SARS-CoV-2 and the human population.”
Still, the evolutionary odds favor scenarios two or three over the long run because those scenarios present the best opportunities for the virus to flourish.
It’s hard for it to spread if the people it infects immediately up and die. It is much easier if they are healthy enough to wander around among their peers to aid the virus in finding new hosts.
Influenza has flourished in the U.S. in this way for years in part due to a culture that glorified people coming to work sick.
The news agency was then reporting a story about how “‘presenteeism,’ or going to work when sick, is a persistent problem at more than half of U.S. workplaces and costs U.S. business a whopping $180 billion a year.”
With many working from home during the pandemic, who knows what the presenteeism costs of Covid-19 might be, but with pressure growing for people to return to offices with the virus still running rampant, presenteeism could become a problem going forward.
Whether a milder form of Covid-19 would make this problem better or worse is, however, hard to say. Some bosses like to have employees in the office no matter what because there is no telling what they might be up to while working from home.
Historical footnote: This is the 13th SARS-CoV-2 variant to be officially named, and thus should have been labeled Nu, the 13th letter in the Greek alphabet. But the WHO said it skipped “nu” because it sounds like “new,” which brought it to Xi. China is, however, ruled by a leader named Xi Jinping and clearly the WHO didn’t want China taking offense. The organization’s official statement on the subject said its “best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding ‘causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.'”
Categories: Commentary, Media, News
Haha…….hahahaha..
How do you do away with so many cases of people between the ages of 30-45 “inexplicably” acquiring myocarditis, pericarditis, and pulmonary embolisms? Easy!
https://noqreport.com/2021/12/04/doctors-just-invented-a-brand-new-disorder-to-explain-away-vaccine-induced-heart-problems/
https://launchliberty.com/disgusting-80-house-republicans-help-pass-bill-to-fund-federal-vaccination-database/
Young votes FOR HR 550: 80 Republicans help House Pass Bill To Fund Federal Vaccination Database
Young Republican Alaska YEA
Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), who was one of the 130 Republicans to vote “no,” told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday that the legislation would enable the federal government to “track” unvaccinated Americans who “will be targeted and forced to comply with Biden’s crazy ‘global vaccination’ vision.”
Miller contended that the government has “no reason” to collect more vaccination data on Americans.
“As I’ve said many times before, the government is not your doctor. The federal government has no business inserting itself into private healthcare matters of Americans. There is no reason for them to collect this data, it is an affront to our liberties and health freedoms,” she said. “This kind of legislation is always passed because the government has its hands in everything nowadays, often at the expense of the freedoms and privacy of Americans. This bill would allow the government to collect, study, and share your private health data. There are endless ways the government could potentially use that information against you – purposefully and accidentally.”
American “Chinese” Communists…Follow the Chinese money.. Hell, just look at Chinese society and you will.what is coming next..and coming quick..
Replace young with someone who is forward oriented and ready to stand for peoples rights. Not just another pig at the trough. He did the best he knew how for alaska but these times call for ethical, tough , thinking people to step forward.
Its no longer a time to compromise peoples privacy or their dollar value like his recent votes did .
Marlin,
Sure Ill be your huckleberry,
“As I’ve said many times before, the government is not your doctor. The federal government has no business inserting itself into private healthcare matters of Americans.
Sorta like a current re visit of Roe vs Wade?
Smoke em if you got ’em.
Lifes about change, hard to swallow at times, but thats just the way it is…if your lucky to accept that fact.Otherwise it just steamrolls over your pitiful a**
Pretty simple Dave:
1. Abort violent Democrats. We have all seen them.
2. It is not my responsibility to pay for your abortion.
3. Killing a baby at term, is, well, murder. Not to be celebrated..
4. Do you see how the Democrat Party is wrong just about 100% of the time? Need proof, compare freedom loving Florida and Texas to Communist controlled Michigan, Wisconsin, California, NY, NJ, etc..
National emergency, like war time. All participate, if able.
……..and we all know that there is no “new Xi”. He’s the same fellow that he has always been………and always will be………
It’s a little early to draw any accurate conclusions about this variant. And like all the information generated over the last 20 months we will have to filter everything through the agendas of those providing the info. There is so much money involved on all sides of the Covid issue that it will remain extremely difficult to draw reliable conclusions.
I expect that this virus or a variant will be the new norm from now on. We will learn to live with it but the world will never be the same and our freedoms will continue to be taken away bit by bit.
The “new norm”? What is different from the previous SARS viruses/mutations of the past? Viruses mutate. A common occurance.. Problem is China could release another bioweapon, this one stronger, and our politicians would do nothing but fill their pockets with Chinese money and blame it on a “mutation”. Those dirtballs take our freedoms because we let them.
Bryan, I am surprised that you think my use of the words “new norm” referred to the virus. They did not. The new norm refers to the the personal and economic affects that have been occurring for the last 20 or more months. Onerous travel restrictions, mask mandates, social distancing, collapsing economies, forcing compliance at schools, creation of a cultural of millions who are paid more to not work than to work, ready acceptance of most all of it, a yearly requirement to vaccinate, creation of a welfare state following the Marxist theory of to those according to their need and from those according to their ability.
It is very possible that these conditions will become the “new norm”. And that includes accepting the bit by bit continuous loss of our freedoms. It really is not about the virus or mutations. It is about the unprecedented reaction to it and future variants and to the conditions that we have allowed and of which we now take for granted as the life we will be facing from now on.
AF, I am sorry. I usually have a problem with clarity.
When I say “virus, mutations”, I mean they are all encompassing and your descriptors are merely a result of the tyrannical minds benefitting from it. I am with you 100%. Time for upheaval and resistance from the people.
Did anyone from the Great Frozen North catch the conclusion of the Michigan/Ohio State game on Saturday afternoon? At the end over 50,000 crazed fans going absolutely bonkers on the field. Point being, no one cares anymore. We have been spoon fed bureaucratic BS for two years plus and we are OVER it. Now these same folks would again shut down the planet over a new variant with a mortality rate just about like the seasonal flu. Get over it, get on with life.
That is the inevitabilty as I wrote at the start of this. Humans are the most adaptable animals on the planet. We appear to be adapting in much the same way the Brits adapted to the Blitz:
“It is what it is. Do what you can to protect yourself. Run for the shelters when you hear the sirens. But life has to go on. ”
First thing out of the lying state run media over the weekend was that we should panic because this “mild” mutation “seems to directly target the children”. Hmm, wonder why those frauds are pushing that lie?? Funny how the Left are currently forcing that cash-cow Vax upon children now. Those tyrants will stop at nothing unless WE THE PEOPLE stop them.
Good points. A metric never mentioned is “life years lost” For example if an average person will live to 78 but he dies at 65 then 13 life years were lost. Using this metric Vietnam took 2.8 million life years and your flu example took 1.95 million. I see similar math in the current scenario. What if bad policies, including authoritarian mandates create deaths out right and poverty that reduces life span of the youngest 270 million Americans but the policies manage to hold the line on the age at death of the 30 million oldest? It’s easy to see that bad policies maximize the life years lost. I’m convinced that we are well above break even and losing more life-years every day the policy makers and central planners reinvigorate and extend the failed policies. Words of wisdom: 1) There is no free lunch, 2) The number of people older than you never increases.