Hallucigenia wrote:servodude wrote:Finding a/the twitter thread from Trevor Bedford with that graph (and having a quick scan though) I'm surprised that the thinking isn't reversed
Don't forget that even the right end of that chart still has immune escape of 30%.
AIUI the general thinking seems to be that although the theory and neutralisation assays are Bad for antibodies, the rest of the immune system is far less broken by omicron and works well enough that overall it's not too bad. And I guess you can do something with the epidemiology in SA vs UK to get an idea of where on the chart omicron lies.
One other thought - what if it's breaking (to some extent) the immunity from other sources, like "being young"? You might get all sorts of effects in the data if omicron gives many more symptoms in children for a given prevalence, particularly in places that don't have heavy surveillance testing of kids.
Thanks
and you're totally right.... in that I was looking at that chart in the in the context of the axes given and not in the bigger picture
zoom in on any knuckle on a bode plot (or similar) and it will look the same - it's the "where" it is that gives it context
i "know" that there's enough noise in all the measurements that plotting the asymptotes is fraught with risk
- e.g. the first wave in the UK could have seen 10% to 50% infected ( there were claims round these parts of 80+ but i think they were politically motivated)
but "everyone" is vaccinated now
- so how do we work out - or when do we decide - that THIS (as a "new" variant) really matters?
I'll be the first to acknowledge that not every place can adopt an antipodean "up drawbridge" approach
- and I'll confess my main concern is the planned family trip tp Tasmania in a fortnight (I've lost both my parents-in-law in the past 16-months,and supported my better half through too many periods of hotel quaratine such that any personal covid concern has since become mostly societal and professional [we're still selling NIV machines.... yay! and you might need one FOREVER if you had really bad covid!])
- so we're (as western societies) about as ready for a resurge in this F***NG thing as we will be so...
...what do we do?
I guess there's no right (or wrong) answers
- and I'm interested in what and why people currently believe what they do
- (I say that ... although if you think getting rid of "the foreign folk" will help YOU ARE WRONG! and a bit misanthropic)
- sd