Covid Rights Quote...

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:

On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn itself
out with a case FWHM of about a month, with relatively few deaths.
It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully vaccinated -
unless you have other serious diseases or medical issues, a fully
vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than a couple of days of mild
symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be unlucky and get seriously ill
despite their vaccines - but the risk is background noise compared to
traffic accidents, unexpected strokes, and any other cause of death that
surrounds is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against. You use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high school teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\" is a good one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more than slightly ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron. Your statement comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS. In the US we have approximately 100 deaths per day from auto accidents or, on the average, two per state per day. We see 20 times that rate die from Covid presently.

If you are not vaccinated, Omicron is a clear and definite risk, and you
should be very careful to avoid it. It is not as big a risk as earlier
strains were, but it is very far from risk-free.

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it is reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new mutation that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 3:33:28 PM UTC-5, Tom Gardner wrote:

Two full vaccinations plus a booster is /very/ definitely worth
having for omicron.

The protection against hospitalisation is ~90%.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boosters-provide-high-level-of-protection-against-death-with-omicron

That is the medical use of the term \"high level of protection\". Do you like 1 in 10 odds of serious disease or 1 in 20 chance of death?

What ever happened to the whack job who talked about my vaccine not working without him getting a vaccine? Is he still here?

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[David Brown]

On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:

On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with relatively few
deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully vaccinated -
unless you have other serious diseases or medical issues, a fully
vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than a couple of days
of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be unlucky and get
seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the risk is background
noise compared to traffic accidents, unexpected strokes, and any
other cause of death that surrounds is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against. You
use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high school
teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\" is a good
one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more than slightly
ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron. Your statement
comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS. In the US we have
approximately 100 deaths per day from auto accidents or, on the
average, two per state per day. We see 20 times that rate die from
Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems to
have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of the
thread. So let me try again.

Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher rates
than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not comparing
deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional severe
side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these are at a very
low level.

If you are not vaccinated, Omicron is a clear and definite risk,
and you should be very careful to avoid it. It is not as big a risk
as earlier strains were, but it is very far from risk-free.

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it is
reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new mutation
that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

Healthy, fully-vaccinated people are not dying of Omicron in any
significant numbers - despite very high infection rates. There is a
small fraction that get seriously ill with it, despite otherwise fair
health and full vaccinations, so it is certainly not risk-free. But it
is low enough risk that many of the more restrictive limitations have
now become an overall negative thing - the risk of health problems due
to lack of exercise and social interaction during lockdowns outweighs
the risk of health problems due to Omicron, at least for healthy
vaccinated people. (Easy measures, such as basic distancing and masks,
are still worth using.)

Unvaccinated people are at a far greater risk.

People with serious medical conditions are always at a risk of getting
worse, or dying - and Omicron increases those risks (far more so if you
are not vaccinated).


As for mutations, we will likely see some in the future. We are already
seeing the BA2 variation of Omicron. But as with most mutations in most
organisms, the differences are quite minor. There are many factors
involved in the risk of serious mutations arising, and in how
problematic such mutations might be.


Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it. There
is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow it to some
extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on society. And we can
hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by having as many people
vaccinated as possible.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 1:13:51 AM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:

On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner

<snip>

Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it.

Or until about 95% of the population has been vaccinated, and we get into herd immunity. We may not be able to. Being vaccinated doesn\'t stop you getting infected, though it does become less likely, and you don\'t stay infectious for as long as an unvaccinated person would. It may be that the virus could continue to spread in a a fully vaccinated population, but we haven\'t got one yet, so we don\'t know. Measles is also very infectious, and we do seem to be able to get to herd immunity against it.

> There is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow it to some extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on society. And we can hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by having as many people vaccinated as possible.

It\'s a bit too early to be confident that we can\'t get to herd immunity against Covid-19. It looks as if we\'d need to vaccinated pretty much everybody - possibly even the under-fives - to get there, but there\'s no convincing reason to claim that it is impossible - except perhaps in the more lunatic right-wing fringes of American society.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:13:51 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:

On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with relatively few
deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully vaccinated -
unless you have other serious diseases or medical issues, a fully
vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than a couple of days
of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be unlucky and get
seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the risk is background
noise compared to traffic accidents, unexpected strokes, and any
other cause of death that surrounds is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against. You
use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high school
teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\" is a good
one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more than slightly
ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron. Your statement
comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS. In the US we have
approximately 100 deaths per day from auto accidents or, on the
average, two per state per day. We see 20 times that rate die from
Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems to
have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of the
thread. So let me try again.

I don\'t think you were unclear.

Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher rates
than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not comparing
deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional severe
side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these are at a very
low level.

For some undefined value of \"low level\". I\'ve not seen any evidence the rate of death or morbidity is low enough to be less than auto accidents for the vaccinated unless you single out a subgroup such as \"under 55\" or \"without major illness\" or some other such exclusions.

Ok, I did your homework for you and found that the risk of death from Covid for the fully vaccinated and boosted is about 70x lower than the unvaccinated. So that is very good. But that is not sufficient evidence to support your claim of being lower risk than auto accidents. I don\'t have the data to calculate how many would die from Covid if everyone were boosted. CDC has a page with some basic data, but not all the useful data for this issue, plus it seems to be rather old, ending in December and with significant increases toward the end of that month.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

If you are not vaccinated, Omicron is a clear and definite risk,
and you should be very careful to avoid it. It is not as big a risk
as earlier strains were, but it is very far from risk-free.

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it is
reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new mutation
that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

Healthy, fully-vaccinated people are not dying of Omicron in any
significant numbers - despite very high infection rates.

Again, only if you define \"significant numbers\" as something objectionably high. I would ask that you show your work.

There is a
small fraction that get seriously ill with it, despite otherwise fair
health and full vaccinations, so it is certainly not risk-free. But it
is low enough risk that many of the more restrictive limitations have
now become an overall negative thing - the risk of health problems due
to lack of exercise and social interaction during lockdowns outweighs
the risk of health problems due to Omicron, at least for healthy
vaccinated people. (Easy measures, such as basic distancing and masks,
are still worth using.)

Unvaccinated people are at a far greater risk.

People with serious medical conditions are always at a risk of getting
worse, or dying - and Omicron increases those risks (far more so if you
are not vaccinated).


As for mutations, we will likely see some in the future. We are already
seeing the BA2 variation of Omicron. But as with most mutations in most
organisms, the differences are quite minor. There are many factors
involved in the risk of serious mutations arising, and in how
problematic such mutations might be.

None of your speculation on the significance of mutations is of value. Mutations are \"minor\" right up until they are significant.

Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it. There
is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow it to some
extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on society. And we can
hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by having as many people
vaccinated as possible.

If there is nothing we can do to stop it, why are the numbers falling off so quickly before significant numbers have been infected?

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[David Brown]

On 05/02/2022 15:47, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 1:13:51 AM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:
On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner

snip

Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it.

Or until about 95% of the population has been vaccinated, and we get
into herd immunity. We may not be able to. Being vaccinated doesn\'t
stop you getting infected, though it does become less likely, and you
don\'t stay infectious for as long as an unvaccinated person would. It
may be that the virus could continue to spread in a a fully
vaccinated population, but we haven\'t got one yet, so we don\'t know.
Measles is also very infectious, and we do seem to be able to get to
herd immunity against it.

That is true. I don\'t know the percentages who have either had the
measles vaccine or had the disease, but in the western world it is very
high. And the unvaccinated people tend to come in groups - thus
vaccinated (or those who had the disease before vaccination became
ubiquitous) form barriers that lower the risk of people in these groups
getting it. Once one person in the group gets it, however, so do all
the others.

People who remain unvaccinated against Covid are more spread out
throughout the population, which means that the disease can continue to
spread.

There are also differences in the effectiveness of the vaccine - the
measles vaccine is very effective, preventing almost all infections,
while the Covid one is much less effective against Omicron.

A simple percentage vaccinated does not cover all the details here.

There is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow
it to some extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on
society. And we can hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by
having as many people vaccinated as possible.

It\'s a bit too early to be confident that we can\'t get to herd
immunity against Covid-19. It looks as if we\'d need to vaccinated
pretty much everybody - possibly even the under-fives - to get there,
but there\'s no convincing reason to claim that it is impossible -
except perhaps in the more lunatic right-wing fringes of American
society.

It is not just the lunatic right-wing fringes of the USA that are
refusing the vaccine.

Maybe we will achieve herd immunity to Covid, maybe not - only time will
tell. Herd immunity always takes time and a combination of high
vaccination rates with an effective vaccine, and enough time for a large
proportion of the unvaccinated to have had the disease. It also depends
on how long immunity lasts, either from vaccines or the disease.

 

[David Brown]

On 05/02/2022 15:48, Rick C wrote:

On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:13:51 AM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with
relatively few deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully
vaccinated - unless you have other serious diseases or medical
issues, a fully vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than
a couple of days of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be
unlucky and get seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the
risk is background noise compared to traffic accidents,
unexpected strokes, and any other cause of death that surrounds
is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against.
You use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high
school teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\"
is a good one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more
than slightly ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron.
Your statement comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS.
In the US we have approximately 100 deaths per day from auto
accidents or, on the average, two per state per day. We see 20
times that rate die from Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems
to have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of
the thread. So let me try again.

I don\'t think you were unclear.


Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher
rates than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not
comparing deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional
severe side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these
are at a very low level.

For some undefined value of \"low level\". I\'ve not seen any evidence
the rate of death or morbidity is low enough to be less than auto
accidents for the vaccinated unless you single out a subgroup such as
\"under 55\" or \"without major illness\" or some other such exclusions.

It seems that not only was I unclear before, but I am still being
unclear - you are again missing the point.

The comparison to traffic accidents was not about Covid death rates.
Not Omicron, not Delta, not any other variants.

Read that paragraph again, and tell me if I am still not clear.


The comparison was with deaths (or other serious side-effects) from
taking a /vaccine/ for Covid. Not the disease - the /vaccine/. Some
people refuse to take the vaccine on the basis that people have died
from the vaccine. My point was that while it is true that a few people
have died as a direct result to taking the vaccine, the risks are tiny.

Ok, I did your homework for you and found that the risk of death from
Covid for the fully vaccinated and boosted is about 70x lower than
the unvaccinated. So that is very good. But that is not sufficient
evidence to support your claim of being lower risk than auto
accidents. I don\'t have the data to calculate how many would die
from Covid if everyone were boosted. CDC has a page with some basic
data, but not all the useful data for this issue, plus it seems to be
rather old, ending in December and with significant increases toward
the end of that month.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

Note that this is for Covid in general, not Omicron specifically.

If you are not vaccinated, Omicron is a clear and definite
risk, and you should be very careful to avoid it. It is not as
big a risk as earlier strains were, but it is very far from
risk-free.

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it
is reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new
mutation that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

Healthy, fully-vaccinated people are not dying of Omicron in any
significant numbers - despite very high infection rates.

Again, only if you define \"significant numbers\" as something
objectionably high. I would ask that you show your work.

Significant in comparison to the number of cases. There has been a
clear pattern that since Omicron became the dominant variant,
hospitalisations, intensive care, and death rates have not increased
anything like as much as the case rates.

<https://www.healthline.com/health-news/omicron-is-91-percent-less-likely-to-cause-death-than-delta-variant>


Of course /anyone/ dying is \"significant\" for the person and their family.

According to <https://ourworldindata.org>, Norway currently has a daily
new case rate per million that is over 3500. This is a lot higher than
the USA or the UK - we are a little later than you, and probably better
at testing (we\'re a dutiful people) even with negligible symptoms. Our
death rate is less than 1 per day, and that\'s including unvaccinated,
elderly, and those with other severe medical conditions. The death
rates in the USA and the UK are higher, but that\'s likely due to lower
vaccination rates and the result of Delta (which was much more
controlled in Norway).

There is a small fraction that get seriously ill with it, despite
otherwise fair health and full vaccinations, so it is certainly not
risk-free. But it is low enough risk that many of the more
restrictive limitations have now become an overall negative thing -
the risk of health problems due to lack of exercise and social
interaction during lockdowns outweighs the risk of health problems
due to Omicron, at least for healthy vaccinated people. (Easy
measures, such as basic distancing and masks, are still worth
using.)

Unvaccinated people are at a far greater risk.

People with serious medical conditions are always at a risk of
getting worse, or dying - and Omicron increases those risks (far
more so if you are not vaccinated).


As for mutations, we will likely see some in the future. We are
already seeing the BA2 variation of Omicron. But as with most
mutations in most organisms, the differences are quite minor. There
are many factors involved in the risk of serious mutations arising,
and in how problematic such mutations might be.

None of your speculation on the significance of mutations is of
value. Mutations are \"minor\" right up until they are significant.

Equally, none of /your/ speculations about mutations are of any value -
\"they are minor right up until they are significant\" means precisely
that there might be a problem with mutations in the future, or might not be.

Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it.
There is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow
it to some extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on
society. And we can hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by
having as many people vaccinated as possible.

If there is nothing we can do to stop it, why are the numbers falling
off so quickly before significant numbers have been infected?

Significant numbers /have/ been infected. Something like 20-25% of
people in the UK and USA have had Covid, with about than half that in
the last couple of months since Omicron came on the scene. Since full
vaccination with booster gives you approximately 50% protection against
getting Omicron, and something like 70-80% are vaccinated, that means
around 40% of the population in these countries have either had Omicron,
or been exposed to it and won\'t get it (at the moment) due to their
vaccine. Most of the less socially active part of the population will
get exposure sooner or later, but at a lower rate.

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 5 Feb 2022 18:38:43 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 05/02/2022 15:48, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:13:51 AM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with
relatively few deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully
vaccinated - unless you have other serious diseases or medical
issues, a fully vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than
a couple of days of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be
unlucky and get seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the
risk is background noise compared to traffic accidents,
unexpected strokes, and any other cause of death that surrounds
is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against.
You use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high
school teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\"
is a good one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more
than slightly ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron.
Your statement comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS.
In the US we have approximately 100 deaths per day from auto
accidents or, on the average, two per state per day. We see 20
times that rate die from Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems
to have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of
the thread. So let me try again.

I don\'t think you were unclear.


Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher
rates than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not
comparing deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional
severe side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these
are at a very low level.

For some undefined value of \"low level\". I\'ve not seen any evidence
the rate of death or morbidity is low enough to be less than auto
accidents for the vaccinated unless you single out a subgroup such as
\"under 55\" or \"without major illness\" or some other such exclusions.



It seems that not only was I unclear before, but I am still being
unclear - you are again missing the point.

\"Attack the issues, not the people.\"

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
\"Bunter\", he said, \"I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason\"

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 05/02/22 17:42, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 5 Feb 2022 18:38:43 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 05/02/2022 15:48, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:13:51 AM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with
relatively few deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully
vaccinated - unless you have other serious diseases or medical
issues, a fully vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than
a couple of days of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be
unlucky and get seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the
risk is background noise compared to traffic accidents,
unexpected strokes, and any other cause of death that surrounds
is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against.
You use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high
school teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\"
is a good one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more
than slightly ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron.
Your statement comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS.
In the US we have approximately 100 deaths per day from auto
accidents or, on the average, two per state per day. We see 20
times that rate die from Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems
to have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of
the thread. So let me try again.

I don\'t think you were unclear.


Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher
rates than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not
comparing deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional
severe side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these
are at a very low level.

For some undefined value of \"low level\". I\'ve not seen any evidence
the rate of death or morbidity is low enough to be less than auto
accidents for the vaccinated unless you single out a subgroup such as
\"under 55\" or \"without major illness\" or some other such exclusions.



It seems that not only was I unclear before, but I am still being
unclear - you are again missing the point.

\"Attack the issues, not the people.\"

He very carefully explained the faulty reasoning - again.

The explanation is in the bit you chose to snip, possibly
because you didn\'t bother to read it.

 

[server]

Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:f78a37b9-0ca5-460e-b47d-58119fcc0dc0n@googlegroups.com:

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it
is reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new
mutation that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

Exact proper observation. This entire time. Had we ALL done just
that, we would not be where we are now, and the dopes cause it to
\'ebb and flow\'. There would be no \'perturbations\' in the wrong
direction had everyone followed their civic duty and masked up. If
only some leader type person had \'instructed the nation\' to do just
that.
Imagine that... there was a way out. It simply was deliberately
ignored. And still.

The very reason to follow one\'s civic duty and remain masked and
isolated whenever possible until it is no longer \"blowin\' in the
wind\".

We may all be Bozos on this bus, but those ignoring these simple
abatement protocols is the reason it still persists.

They should look at gas station fuel pump handles and do swabs to
see if it is present, because if that is a transmission vector, it is
what they missed all along. Handles and door handles and flush
handles.
You know... all those things that Howie Mandel was always leery of.
Oh and \'Monk\' even worse. If those are transmission vectors, then
the world needs to modernize their \'think\' surrounding close social
interactivity, since we know about these and other \'lil critters.

Simple folks. Mask up. Refrain from being \'handsy\' in
introductions and such. Wash your hands often. Ordinary ab hand
soaps, because too much alcohol based hand sanitizer \'defats the
tissue\'. Not good for the dermis.

 

[server]

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote in news:stm0mk$h51$1@dont-
email.me:

- the risk of health problems due
to lack of exercise and social interaction during lockdowns outweighs
the risk of health problems due to Omicron, at least for healthy
vaccinated people.

OMG make shit up from seen on TV tidbits much?
You are right though. Lockdown diet considerations must be made so
that one does not glut one\'s self out... too many times. It has to be
a personal conscious effort.

We going to need hover chairs soon?

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0_DgrFgUkw>

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 12:38:54 PM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:

On 05/02/2022 15:48, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 9:13:51 AM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 05/02/2022 13:39, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 2:28:05 PM UTC-5, David Brown
wrote:
On 02/02/2022 18:19, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2022 17:04:03 +0000, Tom Gardner
/Initially/ there was some scientific opinions that herd
immunity was a valid strategy, but that changed quickly.

The new strain seems to infect vaccinated people and to burn
itself out with a case FWHM of about a month, with
relatively few deaths. It\'s sort of a free vaccine.

It is a free /booster/ for those who are already fully
vaccinated - unless you have other serious diseases or medical
issues, a fully vaccinated person is unlikely to have more than
a couple of days of mild symptoms with Omicron. They /might/ be
unlucky and get seriously ill despite their vaccines - but the
risk is background noise compared to traffic accidents,
unexpected strokes, and any other cause of death that surrounds
is.

This is the sort of BS a high school teacher warned us against.
You use vague terms to describe the omicron variant, what my high
school teacher would call, \"glittering generalities\". \"Unlikely\"
is a good one. Yes, you have always been \"unlikely\" to be more
than slightly ill from Covid, so this is nothing new to omicron.
Your statement comparing omicron to traffic accidents is pure BS.
In the US we have approximately 100 deaths per day from auto
accidents or, on the average, two per state per day. We see 20
times that rate die from Covid presently.

You misunderstood me. I was not clear, and a lot of context seems
to have disappeared in snipping - possibly in different branches of
the thread. So let me try again.

I don\'t think you were unclear.


Unvaccinated people die of Covid, including Omicron, at far higher
rates than traffic accidents. That is obvious. But I was not
comparing deaths from Omicron to traffic accidents.

I was comparing the risk of the Covid /vaccine/ with the risk from
traffic accidents. It is true that there have been occasional
severe side-effects and even deaths from the vaccines, but these
are at a very low level.

For some undefined value of \"low level\". I\'ve not seen any evidence
the rate of death or morbidity is low enough to be less than auto
accidents for the vaccinated unless you single out a subgroup such as
\"under 55\" or \"without major illness\" or some other such exclusions.


It seems that not only was I unclear before, but I am still being
unclear - you are again missing the point.

The comparison to traffic accidents was not about Covid death rates.
Not Omicron, not Delta, not any other variants.

Read that paragraph again, and tell me if I am still not clear.


The comparison was with deaths (or other serious side-effects) from
taking a /vaccine/ for Covid. Not the disease - the /vaccine/. Some
people refuse to take the vaccine on the basis that people have died
from the vaccine. My point was that while it is true that a few people
have died as a direct result to taking the vaccine, the risks are tiny.
Ok, I did your homework for you and found that the risk of death from
Covid for the fully vaccinated and boosted is about 70x lower than
the unvaccinated. So that is very good. But that is not sufficient
evidence to support your claim of being lower risk than auto
accidents. I don\'t have the data to calculate how many would die
from Covid if everyone were boosted. CDC has a page with some basic
data, but not all the useful data for this issue, plus it seems to be
rather old, ending in December and with significant increases toward
the end of that month.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

Note that this is for Covid in general, not Omicron specifically.

If you are not vaccinated, Omicron is a clear and definite
risk, and you should be very careful to avoid it. It is not as
big a risk as earlier strains were, but it is very far from
risk-free.

Omicron is a risk to everyone, vaccinated or not. Worse, since it
is reproducing so fast, it is more likely to give rise to a new
mutation that both reproduces rapidly and is more dangerous.

Healthy, fully-vaccinated people are not dying of Omicron in any
significant numbers - despite very high infection rates.

Again, only if you define \"significant numbers\" as something
objectionably high. I would ask that you show your work.

Significant in comparison to the number of cases. There has been a
clear pattern that since Omicron became the dominant variant,
hospitalisations, intensive care, and death rates have not increased
anything like as much as the case rates.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/omicron-is-91-percent-less-likely-to-cause-death-than-delta-variant


Of course /anyone/ dying is \"significant\" for the person and their family.

According to <https://ourworldindata.org>, Norway currently has a daily
new case rate per million that is over 3500. This is a lot higher than
the USA or the UK - we are a little later than you, and probably better
at testing (we\'re a dutiful people) even with negligible symptoms. Our
death rate is less than 1 per day, and that\'s including unvaccinated,
elderly, and those with other severe medical conditions. The death
rates in the USA and the UK are higher, but that\'s likely due to lower
vaccination rates and the result of Delta (which was much more
controlled in Norway).

There is a small fraction that get seriously ill with it, despite
otherwise fair health and full vaccinations, so it is certainly not
risk-free. But it is low enough risk that many of the more
restrictive limitations have now become an overall negative thing -
the risk of health problems due to lack of exercise and social
interaction during lockdowns outweighs the risk of health problems
due to Omicron, at least for healthy vaccinated people. (Easy
measures, such as basic distancing and masks, are still worth
using.)

Unvaccinated people are at a far greater risk.

People with serious medical conditions are always at a risk of
getting worse, or dying - and Omicron increases those risks (far
more so if you are not vaccinated).


As for mutations, we will likely see some in the future. We are
already seeing the BA2 variation of Omicron. But as with most
mutations in most organisms, the differences are quite minor. There
are many factors involved in the risk of serious mutations arising,
and in how problematic such mutations might be.

None of your speculation on the significance of mutations is of
value. Mutations are \"minor\" right up until they are significant.

Equally, none of /your/ speculations about mutations are of any value -
\"they are minor right up until they are significant\" means precisely
that there might be a problem with mutations in the future, or might not be.

Omicron is infectious enough that it is spreading rapidly, and will
continue to do so until a large proportion of people have had it.
There is nothing we can do to stop it, but we can (and must) slow
it to some extent to reduce the pressure on hospitals and on
society. And we can hugely reduce the risk of severe infections by
having as many people vaccinated as possible.

If there is nothing we can do to stop it, why are the numbers falling
off so quickly before significant numbers have been infected?

Significant numbers /have/ been infected. Something like 20-25% of
people in the UK and USA have had Covid, with about than half that in
the last couple of months since Omicron came on the scene. Since full
vaccination with booster gives you approximately 50% protection against
getting Omicron, and something like 70-80% are vaccinated, that means
around 40% of the population in these countries have either had Omicron,
or been exposed to it and won\'t get it (at the moment) due to their
vaccine. Most of the less socially active part of the population will
get exposure sooner or later, but at a lower rate.

I apologize. You were not unclear, I was speed reading and failed to understand what you wrote.

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 06/02/22 00:48, Rick C wrote:
> I apologize. You were not unclear, I was speed reading and failed to understand what you wrote.

Brownie points duly awarded

If that isn\'t clear to furrigners, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_points

 

[Martin Brown]

On 05/02/2022 05:47, Rick C wrote:

On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 4:38:37 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk
wrote:
tirsdag den 1. februar 2022 kl. 22.16.49 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 01/02/2022 19:39, Ed Lee wrote:
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 11:13:57 AM UTC-8, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 01/02/2022 15:40, Rick C wrote:
I can never find this quote when I am looking for it. A SE
Asian official made a remark about how in their country
they have mandated responses to Covid and have fewer deaths
while in the US things are wide open and we are dying left
and right. He said it in a condensed form, something like
\"We have the freedom to live and in the US they have the
freedom to die\".

I know it has been posted here a number of times, but
searches don\'t show it.
I don\'t recognise the quote - it is too impolite to be from
Japan.

It was from Vietnam. Someone here wrote or forwarded the
message when Vietnam\'s cases were low. But shortly after, they
have had 10k daily new cases and the quote no longer make
sense.
They are doing one hell of a lot lot better than either the UK
(today\'s figure is 110k new cases and rising faster again) or the
USA. Face coverings stopped being mandatory in enclosed spaces in
England last Tuesday - the effects of that change are just
filtering through.

Denmark has been around 30-50K new cases a day for while. All
restrictions and mandates related to covid were removed today,
because even with the large number of cases it doesn\'t make sense
to have restriction with low the number of people in hospital for
it

What low numbers? Many hospitals in the US remain near maximum
capacity. Death rates are climbing significantly too.

They *are* remarkably low numbers in Denmark if his figures are
accurate. I presume like the UK they have a high proportion of people at
least double vaccinated and a majority by now triple vaccinated.

US has a serious problem with their antivaxxers and risky behaviour in a
35% of the population. The Omicron variant now kills 9 unvaccinated
people for every vaccinated individual that it claims. Ratio for
hospitalisation is about the same too - length of stay 2x longer if
unvaccinated.

What sort of idiot thinks the omicron variant is something we can
ignore?

Not exactly ignore but it appears to be something that we can now live
with in the UK without the hospitals being overwhelmed. It remains to be
seen how bad the AB.2 wave will become. UK now has no legal restrictions
(which may be unwise but the government is in disarray).

ONS statistics still show ~5% infection levels in the population and now
decreasing slowly but it has been about that high for several weeks.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections

The virus will run out of people to infect here before too much longer.

If nothing else, we need to remember that this virus continues to
change and every time a new infection arises, we are rolling the dice
on a new variant and it can come up with snake eyes.

That much is true and at the moment the proportion triple vaccinated in
the UK is more or less perfect for optimum risk of another vaccine
escape variant arising, but the government makes the policy and they are
quite prepared to cull 2k people a week to keep everything open.

It will probably be like the real estate reversal of 2008. We saw
the same thing on a smaller scale around 1990. Then in 2008 it was
said that there was no precedent for such an event! We\'ve seen
variants that appeared to be worse than earlier variants. Now with
the higher infectiousness of omicron, we are at risk of a variant
that is both more infectious and more dangerous.

Omicron itself is more infectious but less deadly than any of its
ancestors. It is also ripping through the UK population at a fair rate -
burnout will be in between 10 and 20 weeks at the 5% infected levels we
have been seeing. Thankfully hospitalisations did not go as high as the
experts predicted. The government did call that one right.
(but that was just good luck)

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 06/02/22 11:03, Martin Brown wrote:

On 05/02/2022 05:47, Rick C wrote:
What sort of idiot thinks the omicron variant is something we can
ignore?

Not exactly ignore but it appears to be something that we can now live
with in the UK without the hospitals being overwhelmed. It remains to be
seen how bad the AB.2 wave will become. UK now has no legal restrictions
(which may be unwise but the government is in disarray).

Not quite!

In Northern Ireland, which is currently part of the UK, masks
will be legally required for the indefinite future.

Why? Because that devolved parliament with its devolved (in
a different sense) MPs is playing politics. It appears that
there is legally no way to rescind the laws requiring masks
until they get their act together.

And /that/ is notoriously difficult!

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 6. februar 2022 kl. 12.03.27 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:

On 05/02/2022 05:47, Rick C wrote:
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 4:38:37 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk
wrote:
tirsdag den 1. februar 2022 kl. 22.16.49 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 01/02/2022 19:39, Ed Lee wrote:
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 11:13:57 AM UTC-8, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 01/02/2022 15:40, Rick C wrote:
I can never find this quote when I am looking for it. A SE
Asian official made a remark about how in their country
they have mandated responses to Covid and have fewer deaths
while in the US things are wide open and we are dying left
and right. He said it in a condensed form, something like
\"We have the freedom to live and in the US they have the
freedom to die\".

I know it has been posted here a number of times, but
searches don\'t show it.
I don\'t recognise the quote - it is too impolite to be from
Japan.

It was from Vietnam. Someone here wrote or forwarded the
message when Vietnam\'s cases were low. But shortly after, they
have had 10k daily new cases and the quote no longer make
sense.
They are doing one hell of a lot lot better than either the UK
(today\'s figure is 110k new cases and rising faster again) or the
USA. Face coverings stopped being mandatory in enclosed spaces in
England last Tuesday - the effects of that change are just
filtering through.

Denmark has been around 30-50K new cases a day for while. All
restrictions and mandates related to covid were removed today,
because even with the large number of cases it doesn\'t make sense
to have restriction with low the number of people in hospital for
it

What low numbers? Many hospitals in the US remain near maximum
capacity. Death rates are climbing significantly too.
They *are* remarkably low numbers in Denmark if his figures are
accurate. I presume like the UK they have a high proportion of people at
least double vaccinated and a majority by now triple vaccinated.

straight from the Danish health authorities:
https://www.sst.dk/en/English/Corona-eng/Status-of-the-epidemic/COVID-19-updates-Statistics-and-charts

numbers for the last 24h:
+80% double , +60% triple, vaccinated
PCR tests: 166.203
First time positive: 41.712
Hospitalised with corona: 1.116
In ICU because of corona: 27
On ventilator because of corona: 12

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 6. februar 2022 kl. 12.33.32 UTC+1 skrev Tom Gardner:

On 06/02/22 11:03, Martin Brown wrote:
On 05/02/2022 05:47, Rick C wrote:
What sort of idiot thinks the omicron variant is something we can
ignore?

Not exactly ignore but it appears to be something that we can now live
with in the UK without the hospitals being overwhelmed. It remains to be
seen how bad the AB.2 wave will become. UK now has no legal restrictions
(which may be unwise but the government is in disarray).
Not quite!

In Northern Ireland, which is currently part of the UK, masks
will be legally required for the indefinite future.

Why? Because that devolved parliament with its devolved (in
a different sense) MPs is playing politics. It appears that
there is legally no way to rescind the laws requiring masks
until they get their act together.

here they were at least smart enough to put a time limit
on the special covid laws, so they had to be periodically reevaluated
and readopted or expire

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 10:03:27 PM UTC+11, Martin Brown wrote:

On 05/02/2022 05:47, Rick C wrote:
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 4:38:37 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
tirsdag den 1. februar 2022 kl. 22.16.49 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 01/02/2022 19:39, Ed Lee wrote:
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 11:13:57 AM UTC-8, Martin Brown wrote:
On 01/02/2022 15:40, Rick C wrote:

<snip>

US has a serious problem with their antivaxxers and risky behaviour in a
35% of the population. The Omicron variant now kills 9 unvaccinated
people for every vaccinated individual that it claims. Ratio for
hospitalisation is about the same too - length of stay 2x longer if
unvaccinated.

What sort of idiot thinks the omicron variant is something we can
ignore?

Not exactly ignore but it appears to be something that we can now live
with in the UK without the hospitals being overwhelmed. It remains to be
seen how bad the AB.2 wave will become. UK now has no legal restrictions
(which may be unwise but the government is in disarray).

ONS statistics still show ~5% infection levels in the population and now
decreasing slowly but it has been about that high for several weeks.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections

The virus will run out of people to infect here before too much longer.

It may run out of people that are really easy to infect sometime soon, but Omicron is perfectly capable of infecting the fully vaccinated and boosted, and can exploit them as carriers and as places to reproduce and produce new variants. The vaccinated - and the previously infected - are harder to infect, and don\'t stay infected for as long, but as a route to herd immunity, letting everybody get infected once isn\'t looking great (even ignoring the people who get really sick and occasionally die in the process).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[David Brown]

On 06/02/2022 12:03, Martin Brown wrote:

US has a serious problem with their antivaxxers and risky behaviour in a
35% of the population. The Omicron variant now kills 9 unvaccinated
people for every vaccinated individual that it claims. Ratio for
hospitalisation is about the same too - length of stay 2x longer if
unvaccinated.

Those figures miss out some vital points. First, there are many more
vaccinated people than unvaccinated, meaning the base chance of dying of
Omicron is a lot more than 9 times higher for unvaccinated people.
Secondly, it is important to look at /who/ is dying. I can\'t find the
references again, but there was an article published in Norway showing
that the median age for vaccinated people who die of Covid was about 80
- i.e., people who were mostly already near the end of their lives. For
unvaccinated deaths, it was 40-50. Another article noted that
three-quarters of the unvaccinated people who died of Covid in the USA
had at least 4 co-morbidities (medical conditions making them a lot more
likely to die).

Anti-vaxers are /much/ more likely to die of Covid, and to do so even if
they are young and healthy.

 

[David Brown]

On 05/02/2022 18:45, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 05/02/22 17:42, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 5 Feb 2022 18:38:43 +0100, David Brown


It seems that not only was I unclear before, but I am still being
unclear - you are again missing the point.

\"Attack the issues, not the people.\"

He very carefully explained the faulty reasoning - again.

The explanation is in the bit you chose to snip, possibly
because you didn\'t bother to read it.

I was also rather careful not to \"attack\" Rick - if anything, I attacked
/myself/. (And I certainly /was/ unclear to start with, though I
thought my follow-up was clear enough.)

I don\'t agree with Rick on everything, but he is usually well-informed
and thoughtful, and I know we agree on the main points here. So when
there is such an apparent difference of opinions, it is obvious there
has been a misunderstanding or miscommunication. It is less obvious -
and also less important - whether the main fault lies in the writing or
the reading.