"Such a Twitter thread is anathema to the histrionics that have invaded much of the COVID discourse; it doesn’t spell an informative thread of information, and instead reads more like the workings of a hypochondriac." Anathema to the histrionics? You are saying that the thread is an example of histrionics, the production of "a hypochondriac." You need a copy editor.
Hi Modern Discontent. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you wrote, but I suspect you are using the term "virulence" as a synonym for "transmissibility". "Virulence" is an approximate or exact synonym for "pathogenicity" https://www.tulane.edu/~wiser/protozoology/notes/Path.html - the degree to which an infection causes symptoms, harm and death.
"Transmissibility", ~AKA "infectivity" is a measure of how much a pathogen spreads in a given context. Part of that context is the degree to which the infection enables or prevents the host from engaging in behaviours which increase the chance of transmission. There is a general principle that pathogens evolve to become less virulent, as a competitive advantage over those which cause more severe symptoms which are likely to lead to less normal social mixing and/or more community scale efforts at reducing transmission.
Everything seems to be consistent with omicron being highly transmissible. The sample of the first known case seems to be early to mid-November:https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ (bogs down my Firefox browser) so the variant has probably been spreading since some time in October. It has already been sequenced in 18 countries: (number of sequences) in 128 South Africa; 19 Botswana; 13 Portugal; 12 Netherlands; 9 UK; 6 Australia; 5 Germany; 5 Hong Kong; 4 Italy & Austria; 2 Canada & Brazil; 1 Sweden, Belgium, Reunion, Israel, Spain & Czech Republic.
The rapid increase in case numbers in South Africa seems to be due largely or entirely to omicron. It is summer and previously dominant delta cases have been waning rapidly, down to 4.49 new cases per day on 10th November. The latest figure is 45.90 on 30th November. This is a doubling time of 5.7 days.
I see no reason to believe omicron is less virulent than delta.
According to Hu et al 2021-03-21 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21710-6 (pre-delta, I guess, in Hunan, China): "The mean generation time was estimated to be 5.7 days, with infectiousness peaking 1.8 days before symptom onset, with 95% of transmission events occurring between 8.8 days before and 9.5 days after symptom onset. Most transmission events occurred during the pre-symptomatic phase (59.2%). SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility to infection increases with age, while transmissibility is not significantly different between age groups and between symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals."
So if we took whatever variant this was and made a second variant with no symptoms, its transmissibility would be marginally increased since without symptoms, presumably there would be unchanged social behavior and so more chance for transmission to new hosts. Since many people, in the Hunan context, are transmitting the virus even with symptoms, it seems unlikely that removing the symptoms would greatly increase overall transmission.
(Theoretically, a variant which caused only mild symptoms would spread very widely in the long term since no-one would care too much compared to the current situation where some people - nearly all of them vitamin D deficient and lacking early treatment - are harmed and killed.)
I think there is very little overall transmission advantage to be gained by delaying or eliminating early symptoms. A variant with better performing viruses, such as by lasting longer in the air, or being better able to infect cells, and/or which cause more viral shedding, can gain enormous transmission advantages, and those advantages would still remain positive even if the new variant caused significantly worse symptoms during the infectious page.
Severe COVID-19 symptoms are of little evolutionary importance to the virus, since they are well after the infectious stage. These occur partly due to co-morbidities but mainly due to typically terribly low, and not at all repleted, 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, especially if there are no early treatments and if the hospital treatment is similarly clueless, such as corticosteroids to suppress inflammatory responses, which also suppress innate and adaptive responses to viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens which contribute to the damage.
" . . .many people who are reporting on the current information on COVID are not building off of previous knowledge." would win Gold at the Politeness Olympics!
Hi Robin, you're absolutely right on that. Big mistake on my part and I'll make sure to correct for the term virulence. I should have stated that viruses become less virulent as they become more transmissible.
My argument with the symptoms as of now is not to downplay the severity, but say that much of the evidence as it exists now doesn't indicate something to become paranoid over. Like I said, people should remain concerned but they need to be sensible in that their concerns should be based off of actual evidence. The doctor cited several instances of extreme fatigue, and I would like to see evidence of how this differs to the current Delta symptom as many people have reported having fatigue there as well.
It also indicates on little girl with higher heart rate. I'd like to see evidence of more of that occurring. I would wonder if it happens to be age-related, but again I would like to see more evidence for that as well.
Thanks for your explanation. It is complex and if infections are occurring before many symptom onsets then virulence definitely would not be a good measure, although I have questioned the extent to which asymptomatic and presymptomatic people exist.
And definitely it all seems to point to early treatment being better. I'm trying to write a piece on Vitamin D right now but it seems obvious now that earlier treatment is best instead of the routine we are using right now.
Really appreciate your comment about the media coverage of covid. You are quite nice about it 😊 "Over time I’ve found my patience within the realm of COVID to continuously be tested, because many of the people who are supposed to relay this information in a manner that is both informative and sensible tends to always be lacking."
The phrasing that has been coming to mind for me is that most average Joe news reporters and writers wouldn't know the difference between a good study and a pimple on their ass. They don't have the education to assess studies or statistics. Due to my science background, I can find my way around a study, but not the statistics, and I am continually annoyed by news articles links to studies that do not substantiate claims made in the article. The consequences of this are significant these days.
I honestly have more..."choice" words to use sometimes and they tend to appear from time to time in my writing, but overall I feel that my writing is more constrained than I would hope. There is PLENTY that I find absolutely abhorrent about COVID's coverage, all of which really point to the scummy nature of the press as a whole.
It's amazing how often the media shows how much rudimentary knowledge they have. It's like they haven't even opened a book before. I remember a Chiron on my local news channel that said that "antibodies help fight viruses" like what the hell is that? It's really scary that many journalists really may not know much about science aside from "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell".
It's also shocking when you find out most outlets may not have even read the study. Some articles seem like word for word copies in some instances and it's shocking that they could get away with it. Scientists who go into journalism need to understand that they have to report information in a manner that brings their viewers up to their scientific level rather than dumbing it down until the message is just an ambiguous stew of nothingness.
Ah, ok. It's amazing isn't it, yes sometimes abhorrent. You said it well, news articles often copy other news articles, in fact sometimes link to other news articles as source material. This makes it seem like there is a mass consensus that's not really there.
I've even opened links to studies where the conclusions were the exact opposite of what the writer says. 🤯
And then there's the news stations that love to quote pre-prints and make them the focus of a segment. "You should eat more chocolate because this study proves chocolate is good for you!" Then a few months later, "you thought chocolate was good for you but this study shows it may be a silent killer." Argh!
Yupp, it absolutely misses on the complexities and nuances of studies. Studies should always be taken with a highly conservative viewpoint; better to not generalize than to over generalize and then you find out the thing that is super healthy will also give you cancer!
I do wonder if any of these people actually remember reporting on things previously, but it seems like all prior reporting gets memory holed.
Personally, I find that I have trouble reading all of the papers that I post sometimes but if I get called out because of it I deserve it. The media can lie, misinform, or redirect information and if they get found out they don't have to worry about correcting it until far after the story is reported and the narrative set!
I agree with you 100% that border closures are ineffective, but I am confused as to why you cite the source you did to support your stance that masking is not effective, when the paper does not state that at all (in fact, the conclusions of their paper combined with their experimental results and mathematical modeling seem to suggest the opposite of what you stated). The paper clearly states that cloth or surgical masks are less effective than their stated filtration due to gaps, but also clearly states that well fitted KN95/high filtration masks are very effective in spaces where 2m distancing is not possible and/or air exchange is not possible. In fact, they clearly say in their conclusions "Thus, the present results endorse the use of high-efficiency, unvalved masks with a proper fit when the recommended social distancing guidelines cannot be maintained between individuals."
No you're absolutely right about that. It was more my concern that references to masking never specify which type. Personally, I am for ending mask mandates but people should absolutely be open to wear what they will. It definitely indicates that there is a difference between the types and that if anything people should be wearing the KN95 ones. That's a mistake on my part for not mentioning that distinction and I'll make a correction about that.
Absolutely! Thank you for the clarification! Although I am for mask mandates in a theoretical sense, I also agree that they don't do much - the data has shown time and time again that proper masking works on an individual scale, but that as a policy, it doesn't do much. It's probably due to the fact that 1) definition of a "mask" includes any sort of face covering, 2) improper wearing (chin diaper, hello), and 3) masking being impossible in certain situations (eating at a restaurant, being at weddings, etc). I fully support the idea of improving overall ventilation over requiring masks if that is possible.
No worries! In fact, I appreciate you pointing out that study. I keep my comments open because I want people to check what I link or cite for themselves to see if there is anything I got wrong. It also doesn't mean much when I spend my time criticizing the lack of context when reported by the media but do the same thing myself! I need to be more aware to make sure I check what I cite and don't rush to link things that I don't intend to fully understand.
As for mask mandates, I think my main concern is the fact it is a mandate. I think many people, out of personal choice and good will, would choose to wear a mask if asked but not enforced or mandated to do so. There's a much heavier weight that comes with mandating and forcing people to behave in a certain manner, and it's something that doesn't sit right with many people.
All of the points you made are how I feel. There's been an incoherent messaging throughout the pandemic. We were told not to wear masks because they don't work, then do because they do but it doesn't matter which one. Well, the type actually does matter. Oh, but if you go into a restaurant wear a mask until you are seated then take it off and it's fine. It all doesn't make sense and yet we are all forced to follow it.
Ventilation is interesting. I think the concern is that that may take far too much money and renovations in many areas, but places such as nursing homes and hospitals which already have issues with poor ventilation and higher concerns of spreading pathogens should be the first places to implement new ventilation measures.
"Such a Twitter thread is anathema to the histrionics that have invaded much of the COVID discourse; it doesn’t spell an informative thread of information, and instead reads more like the workings of a hypochondriac." Anathema to the histrionics? You are saying that the thread is an example of histrionics, the production of "a hypochondriac." You need a copy editor.
Hi Modern Discontent. Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you wrote, but I suspect you are using the term "virulence" as a synonym for "transmissibility". "Virulence" is an approximate or exact synonym for "pathogenicity" https://www.tulane.edu/~wiser/protozoology/notes/Path.html - the degree to which an infection causes symptoms, harm and death.
"Transmissibility", ~AKA "infectivity" is a measure of how much a pathogen spreads in a given context. Part of that context is the degree to which the infection enables or prevents the host from engaging in behaviours which increase the chance of transmission. There is a general principle that pathogens evolve to become less virulent, as a competitive advantage over those which cause more severe symptoms which are likely to lead to less normal social mixing and/or more community scale efforts at reducing transmission.
I think many people are being overly optimistic about new SARS-CoV-2 variants being less virulent. Some have seized upon early reports from South African doctors that omicron's symptoms seem to be mild. https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/omicron-extremely-mild-says-doctor-who-first-discovered-strain-numerous-mutations and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/south-african-doctor-raised-alarm-omicron-variant-says-symptoms/ . However racing hearts in children and extreme fatigue don't seem very mild to me.
Everything seems to be consistent with omicron being highly transmissible. The sample of the first known case seems to be early to mid-November:https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/ (bogs down my Firefox browser) so the variant has probably been spreading since some time in October. It has already been sequenced in 18 countries: (number of sequences) in 128 South Africa; 19 Botswana; 13 Portugal; 12 Netherlands; 9 UK; 6 Australia; 5 Germany; 5 Hong Kong; 4 Italy & Austria; 2 Canada & Brazil; 1 Sweden, Belgium, Reunion, Israel, Spain & Czech Republic.
The rapid increase in case numbers in South Africa seems to be due largely or entirely to omicron. It is summer and previously dominant delta cases have been waning rapidly, down to 4.49 new cases per day on 10th November. The latest figure is 45.90 on 30th November. This is a doubling time of 5.7 days.
The only report I know of regarding hospitalisations in South Africa is: https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/covid-19-hospitalizations-rising-south-africas-omicron-hot-spot-rcna6922 . In Gauteng province from 120 hospital admissions in the week to 6th November, admissions (or is this the number of people in hospital?) rose to 580 for the week ending 27th November. This is a doubling every 9.2 days.
I see no reason to believe omicron is less virulent than delta.
According to Hu et al 2021-03-21 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21710-6 (pre-delta, I guess, in Hunan, China): "The mean generation time was estimated to be 5.7 days, with infectiousness peaking 1.8 days before symptom onset, with 95% of transmission events occurring between 8.8 days before and 9.5 days after symptom onset. Most transmission events occurred during the pre-symptomatic phase (59.2%). SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility to infection increases with age, while transmissibility is not significantly different between age groups and between symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals."
So if we took whatever variant this was and made a second variant with no symptoms, its transmissibility would be marginally increased since without symptoms, presumably there would be unchanged social behavior and so more chance for transmission to new hosts. Since many people, in the Hunan context, are transmitting the virus even with symptoms, it seems unlikely that removing the symptoms would greatly increase overall transmission.
(Theoretically, a variant which caused only mild symptoms would spread very widely in the long term since no-one would care too much compared to the current situation where some people - nearly all of them vitamin D deficient and lacking early treatment - are harmed and killed.)
I think there is very little overall transmission advantage to be gained by delaying or eliminating early symptoms. A variant with better performing viruses, such as by lasting longer in the air, or being better able to infect cells, and/or which cause more viral shedding, can gain enormous transmission advantages, and those advantages would still remain positive even if the new variant caused significantly worse symptoms during the infectious page.
Severe COVID-19 symptoms are of little evolutionary importance to the virus, since they are well after the infectious stage. These occur partly due to co-morbidities but mainly due to typically terribly low, and not at all repleted, 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, especially if there are no early treatments and if the hospital treatment is similarly clueless, such as corticosteroids to suppress inflammatory responses, which also suppress innate and adaptive responses to viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens which contribute to the damage.
" . . .many people who are reporting on the current information on COVID are not building off of previous knowledge." would win Gold at the Politeness Olympics!
Oh, I noticed your Substack has a lot of posts on Vitamin D so I'll make sure to check that out!
Hi Robin, you're absolutely right on that. Big mistake on my part and I'll make sure to correct for the term virulence. I should have stated that viruses become less virulent as they become more transmissible.
My argument with the symptoms as of now is not to downplay the severity, but say that much of the evidence as it exists now doesn't indicate something to become paranoid over. Like I said, people should remain concerned but they need to be sensible in that their concerns should be based off of actual evidence. The doctor cited several instances of extreme fatigue, and I would like to see evidence of how this differs to the current Delta symptom as many people have reported having fatigue there as well.
It also indicates on little girl with higher heart rate. I'd like to see evidence of more of that occurring. I would wonder if it happens to be age-related, but again I would like to see more evidence for that as well.
Thanks for your explanation. It is complex and if infections are occurring before many symptom onsets then virulence definitely would not be a good measure, although I have questioned the extent to which asymptomatic and presymptomatic people exist.
And definitely it all seems to point to early treatment being better. I'm trying to write a piece on Vitamin D right now but it seems obvious now that earlier treatment is best instead of the routine we are using right now.
Really appreciate your comment about the media coverage of covid. You are quite nice about it 😊 "Over time I’ve found my patience within the realm of COVID to continuously be tested, because many of the people who are supposed to relay this information in a manner that is both informative and sensible tends to always be lacking."
The phrasing that has been coming to mind for me is that most average Joe news reporters and writers wouldn't know the difference between a good study and a pimple on their ass. They don't have the education to assess studies or statistics. Due to my science background, I can find my way around a study, but not the statistics, and I am continually annoyed by news articles links to studies that do not substantiate claims made in the article. The consequences of this are significant these days.
I honestly have more..."choice" words to use sometimes and they tend to appear from time to time in my writing, but overall I feel that my writing is more constrained than I would hope. There is PLENTY that I find absolutely abhorrent about COVID's coverage, all of which really point to the scummy nature of the press as a whole.
It's amazing how often the media shows how much rudimentary knowledge they have. It's like they haven't even opened a book before. I remember a Chiron on my local news channel that said that "antibodies help fight viruses" like what the hell is that? It's really scary that many journalists really may not know much about science aside from "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell".
It's also shocking when you find out most outlets may not have even read the study. Some articles seem like word for word copies in some instances and it's shocking that they could get away with it. Scientists who go into journalism need to understand that they have to report information in a manner that brings their viewers up to their scientific level rather than dumbing it down until the message is just an ambiguous stew of nothingness.
Ah, ok. It's amazing isn't it, yes sometimes abhorrent. You said it well, news articles often copy other news articles, in fact sometimes link to other news articles as source material. This makes it seem like there is a mass consensus that's not really there.
I've even opened links to studies where the conclusions were the exact opposite of what the writer says. 🤯
And then there's the news stations that love to quote pre-prints and make them the focus of a segment. "You should eat more chocolate because this study proves chocolate is good for you!" Then a few months later, "you thought chocolate was good for you but this study shows it may be a silent killer." Argh!
Yupp, it absolutely misses on the complexities and nuances of studies. Studies should always be taken with a highly conservative viewpoint; better to not generalize than to over generalize and then you find out the thing that is super healthy will also give you cancer!
I do wonder if any of these people actually remember reporting on things previously, but it seems like all prior reporting gets memory holed.
Personally, I find that I have trouble reading all of the papers that I post sometimes but if I get called out because of it I deserve it. The media can lie, misinform, or redirect information and if they get found out they don't have to worry about correcting it until far after the story is reported and the narrative set!
I agree with you 100% that border closures are ineffective, but I am confused as to why you cite the source you did to support your stance that masking is not effective, when the paper does not state that at all (in fact, the conclusions of their paper combined with their experimental results and mathematical modeling seem to suggest the opposite of what you stated). The paper clearly states that cloth or surgical masks are less effective than their stated filtration due to gaps, but also clearly states that well fitted KN95/high filtration masks are very effective in spaces where 2m distancing is not possible and/or air exchange is not possible. In fact, they clearly say in their conclusions "Thus, the present results endorse the use of high-efficiency, unvalved masks with a proper fit when the recommended social distancing guidelines cannot be maintained between individuals."
No you're absolutely right about that. It was more my concern that references to masking never specify which type. Personally, I am for ending mask mandates but people should absolutely be open to wear what they will. It definitely indicates that there is a difference between the types and that if anything people should be wearing the KN95 ones. That's a mistake on my part for not mentioning that distinction and I'll make a correction about that.
Absolutely! Thank you for the clarification! Although I am for mask mandates in a theoretical sense, I also agree that they don't do much - the data has shown time and time again that proper masking works on an individual scale, but that as a policy, it doesn't do much. It's probably due to the fact that 1) definition of a "mask" includes any sort of face covering, 2) improper wearing (chin diaper, hello), and 3) masking being impossible in certain situations (eating at a restaurant, being at weddings, etc). I fully support the idea of improving overall ventilation over requiring masks if that is possible.
No worries! In fact, I appreciate you pointing out that study. I keep my comments open because I want people to check what I link or cite for themselves to see if there is anything I got wrong. It also doesn't mean much when I spend my time criticizing the lack of context when reported by the media but do the same thing myself! I need to be more aware to make sure I check what I cite and don't rush to link things that I don't intend to fully understand.
As for mask mandates, I think my main concern is the fact it is a mandate. I think many people, out of personal choice and good will, would choose to wear a mask if asked but not enforced or mandated to do so. There's a much heavier weight that comes with mandating and forcing people to behave in a certain manner, and it's something that doesn't sit right with many people.
All of the points you made are how I feel. There's been an incoherent messaging throughout the pandemic. We were told not to wear masks because they don't work, then do because they do but it doesn't matter which one. Well, the type actually does matter. Oh, but if you go into a restaurant wear a mask until you are seated then take it off and it's fine. It all doesn't make sense and yet we are all forced to follow it.
Ventilation is interesting. I think the concern is that that may take far too much money and renovations in many areas, but places such as nursing homes and hospitals which already have issues with poor ventilation and higher concerns of spreading pathogens should be the first places to implement new ventilation measures.