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Comment by zapataband1 | Hacker News Reader

Research has shown that it spreads a lot less in the lungs than in the nose, which could be an indicator of what's happening with the severity (= less) and why it spreads much easier.

https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-c...

If you call him irresponsible, at least back it up with numbers why. He's got a similar estimate of what i think is happening.

We're all grown-ups here, there's no harm in interpreting the current situation. Anyone can come by and refute his assumption to improve discussion.

As an example:

@bruce511: To me, the core question is how much the cases in south Africa can be compared to other countries, because of high infection rate during previous waves.

There's still a reasonable risk if previous infection with delta protects better than vaccines.

And for that, we will have to wait :(

I'm hopeful though.

Speaking of backing things up, research has not shown that “it spreads a lot less in the lungs than in the nose”. The single study you’re referring to was measuring growth in tissue cultures, so we don’t know how transferable those numbers will be in vivo.

I’m hoping for the best, too, but let’s not continue the tradition we’ve had during the pandemic of saying “you’re worrying too much” and being wrong.

Today’s Science on this: https://www.science.org/content/article/early-lab-studies-hi...

About backing things up:

The article you referenced, referenced a research with a added comment where they declare they can't deduct information about hospitalisation:

> add a comment on page 5 that the crude ratios of hospitalisations to cases give no information on severity on their own due to the differences in the age distribution of Omicron and Delta cases.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana...

So your referenced article seems useless about hospitalisation ( the information you extracted from it)

This is also from the UK who had an increase in delta already before Omicron came. My guess is that Denmark would be a better reference to compare hospitalization for Omicron.

Except if you are seeing something that i don't?

I shared that as an example of actual experts saying not to get over eager. Your post is confused enough that I’m not sure whether you thought I was saying it was more or less severe rather than what I intended: we need to wait for the data.

Didn't got that since I also said it before ? :p

Ps. Early data in Denmark is frequently updated and looks positive concerning hospitalisation.

( But still early after only 3 weeks)

"I’m hoping for the best, too, but let’s not continue the tradition we’ve had during the pandemic of saying “you’re worrying too much” and being wrong."

The problem is anything that works will always look like an overreaction.

But it doesn't really matter anymore. With all of the fatigue and the failure of public health professionals to set public expectations around vaccines which are looking like they're going need to be taken seasonaly now the only poltically feasible course left at this point is "let's fuck around and find out."

> we don’t know how transferable those numbers

With a growing number of real-life cases, hopefully there are multiple studies already in progress.

Certainly — we’re in that agonizingly slow period waiting for confirmation.

Those studies have a disadvantage that the natural immune system doesn't kick in, in lab tests.

So the results should be better than in the study.

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