> the omicron variant is somewhat close to common cold, and that it causes mild symptoms
No, we don’t have anywhere near enough data yet to draw that conclusion.
What we know for sure is that it generally doesn’t cause hospitalization/death among people that have previously been infected by Covid or vaccinated. Which is generally true for every variant. And we also know that it has a significant degree of immune escape, causing a much higher rate of reinfections / breakthrough infections than previous variants.
It may be that it turns out to cause less severe disease even for the immunologically naïve, and many observers are hopeful that that turns out to be the case.
> cannot get the vaccines for health reasons
I would recommend you consult a physician who is an expert in your condition before making this decision.
> In fully vaccinated and/or boosted people, omicron symptoms tend to be mild.
Mild in comparison to other strains of Covid, yes. Tends not to require hospitalisation and has a lower risk of death. It doesn't say 'mild compared to a cold' though. I think it its too early for a study too be able to suggest that Omicron changed the possibility of developing long Covid either.
In regards to identifying yourself as one of the people I was targeting in my comment about 'some guy', I will put that down to a guilty concience.
> …Omicron (the dominant variant) is like a mild cold.
Omicron appears mild in the statistics because by the time it hit western countries like the US and UK, there was almost nobody left who hasn’t either been vaccinated or exposed to a prior variant, or both.
Countries with low vaccination rates and low prior exposure rates are seeing severity of outcome with Omicron that is comparable to prior variants.
> Is there any evidence that shows that omicron is even particularly dangerous?
Looks like death rates are climbing in jurisdictions who were on the leading edge of the Omicron wave. If I had to guess, it's significantly better if infected than Delta, but still much worse than we're used to dealing with with influenza.
> There has a been a “savior” strain that a lot of us have been hoping for which is: extremely transmissible, and relatively benign.
This is only able to have any benefit to the extent that it also is strongly and durably protective against infection from other variants.
I'm hopeful that things go much better this time around, both because vaccines are still somewhat protective and it looks somewhat less dangerous than Delta.
> It doesn't say 'mild compared to a cold' though.
"Mild compared to a cold" is not what I wrote either. I said it's "like a mild cold" for vaccinated people. "Mild cold" being, you know, what people get all the time: some sore throat/cough/congestion. No high fevers, not bedridden, etc.
If you read the news beyond that one link I pasted above, you'll see what I said is pretty consistent with what has been reported. Here's [1] another one:
> For many people, especially those who are vaccinated and otherwise healthy, Omicron does appear to have relatively mild symptoms, including upper respiratory or cold like symptoms like a runny nose congestion, sneezing, and sore throat—which is relatively common—and headaches. Fever is less common than we’ve seen with other variants, especially in vaccinated people.
It's milder when measured by overall hospitalization rates (covering vaccinated + unvaccinated + past infection), but is there evidence that it is milder for unvaccinated individuals specifically? Genuine question, happy to learn.
> The C.D.C. attributed the tendency of Omicron cases to cause less severe illness to the virus itself, as well as growing levels of immunity from prior infections and from the rollout of vaccinations. It said that roughly 30 million more people were fully vaccinated during the Omicron surge than during the Delta wave in the fall.
> As a result, a smaller proportion of coronavirus cases are ending in hospitalizations: The C.D.C. said there had been a peak of 27 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases in January, compared with 78 admissions per 1,000 cases in the fall.
If it were "highly attenuated," I'd expect close to 0 hospital admissions for every 1,000 cases, not 27.
Exaggerating "less severe" to "near harmless" is one of those errors anti-vax people and other denialists commonly make in their arguments.
> The two doctors had received three doses of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, and so far have shown mild COVID-19 symptoms, the hospital said.
The mildness of the symptoms is just as newsworthy as the fact that there are breakthrough infections. It has long been speculated that COVID-19 would evolve into more contagious but less virulent variants. Omicron may be one such variant. If it is, that's probably a good thing.
Wouldn't it be great if a vaccinated person could get omicron, have a mild illness, and then have even stronger immunity against other variants?
> But all you can hear these days, is that how so much contagious Omicron is, without mentioning the chance of being a lot less harmful.
We _know_ that it's spreading very quickly (there is some legitimate question over how much of this is inherent spreading ability vs immunity evasion). The idea that it's "a lot less harmful" is largely speculative; there just isn't the data to say that right now. Now, it may emerge that it is, and that would be great, but it would be extremely dangerous to assume it at the moment.
> And with the high transmissibility of the Omicron variant—which often results in milder disease outcomes—many patients may be concerned about developing long COVID.
I have yet to read about anyone concluding that Omicron causes long COVID in vaccinated folks. If they have (or anyone else has) evidence indicating this is likely, I would love to hear it. Even the article doesn't claim this is the case.
"A widely-shared quote from a South African doctor, saying Omicron causes only mild symptoms, is being taken out of context. She was referring to a small group of young, healthy people and warned of severe disease in other groups"
> Omicron doesn’t confer great immunity against delta and other, “older” virus variants which are still out there, potentially ready to come back next winter.
Care to share a paper to back this up ? This statement seems hard to prove right now.
> but at the very least they're more transmissible.
The "more transmissible" may be partially confounded by novelty. E.g. what's influenza's R0 in an immunologically naive population? Who knows.
Vaccination doesn't fully answer what the equilibrium transmissibility will be. either, because there's things like mucosal immunity.
> I think omicron is seen as less severe because so many people have had at least one shot of the vaccine.
So far the (weak) evidence we have points to both:
- A somewhat lower severity of infection from omicron than delta regardless of vaccination status.
- Moderate protection against severe disease from a 2 shot mRNA vaccine series, and pretty good protection against severe disease after a recent 3rd booster shot.
So, that is, it's not one or the other, it's both: Omicron is probably less severe overall and has its severity reduced further by vaccination.
No, we don’t have anywhere near enough data yet to draw that conclusion.
What we know for sure is that it generally doesn’t cause hospitalization/death among people that have previously been infected by Covid or vaccinated. Which is generally true for every variant. And we also know that it has a significant degree of immune escape, causing a much higher rate of reinfections / breakthrough infections than previous variants.
It may be that it turns out to cause less severe disease even for the immunologically naïve, and many observers are hopeful that that turns out to be the case.
> cannot get the vaccines for health reasons
I would recommend you consult a physician who is an expert in your condition before making this decision.
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