[dombesz]

100% agree with you. If it turns out that it’s so much less deadly than the other strains, we should definitely be positive about it and stop the fear mongering. 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. This biased representation in the news turns me into being a skeptic of all the media outlets, regardless of their political agenda.

On the good side, even the inventor of mRna vaccines, Karikó Katalin says that Omicron could end the pandemic if it proves to be less harmful.[1]

1. https://hungarytoday.hu/kariko-omicron-pfizer-coronavirus/

[rsynnott]

> 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.

[yostrovs]

Judging by the response of the authorities, the new strain is highly dangerous. There's a lot of panicking going on.

[JPKab]

You are judging a response that is motivated by "abundance of caution" with zero limiting principle. They don't trust the South African data (in my opinion this is old fashioned bigotry by rich governments towards government agencies they view as being inferior in poorer countries) even though everything the South Africans has said for weeks has turned out be correct.

Bureaucrats aren't incentivized to do anything but minimize their own risk, with no regard to other factors like creating a panic.

It was blatantly obvious to those of us who give a shit about India (not the myopic, inward focused US media) in February that the delta variant was horribly dangerous based on what the doctors in India were saying. But in South Africa, we're ignoring their doctors and pretending like we're superior, and are the only ones capable of collecting and analyzing data in Excel.

My prediction:

Omicron will turn out to not increase hospitalizations (only cases, which don't really matter anymore with 90% of senior citizens being vaccinated), the media will focus on the cases, and the percentage of people who think the authorities/media are untrustworthy will go up even more than it already has. This is really really bad. I live in a county in Colorado with a mask mandate. It's a suburban, blue county. Heavily blue. And the mask mandate is universally ignored. That wasn't happening earlier in 2021. It is now, and it's very noticeable. They don't trust the authorities anymore, and this will make that worse.

[rsynnott]

The authorities don't have any special secret knowledge here; they're responding to the (reasonably likely) possibility that it's as dangerous as Delta but will spread much more easily.

Honestly, given the rate of spread, even if it had half the hospitalization risk of Delta it's _still_ terrifying.

[JPKab]

What's the hospitalization rate of delta in the vaccinated? It's pretty low.

At this point, the vast majority of the unvaxxed are younger, lower risk people. The high risk people who aren't vaxxed (fucking idiots) are now highly treatable. We've got at least two, but a third coming soon, potent treatment options that radically reduce hospitalization. The new Pfizer pill is a true game changer, and we already have the monoclonal ABs.

It doesn't appear that the public health authorities or the media are updating their policies based on these new realities. 90% of the people most at risk are vaxxed, and for those who are hospitalized (vaxxed or not) we now have treatments shown in clinical trials to further reduce hospitalization rates by roughly 88-90%. Translation: the hospitals aren't going to get overwhelmed anymore.

Science won, even with a sizable chunk of the populace not wanting the vaccine. People can debate the moral hazard of treating unvaxxed with these new therapeutics, but that's a moral argument, not a practical one. Give them the pill or the infusion, keep them out of an ICU bed, and wag your finger at them later. This pandemic is over, and the fear needs to go with it.

[rsynnott]

The pills won't be available in large quantities for a couple of months.

In countries with high vaccination rates, most ICU beds are now occupied by youngish, largely unvaccinated people. In Ireland, for instance, 60% of covid patients in ICU over the last 5 months have been under 65, and this is _growing_. They have a decent survival rate, but they're still taking up ICU beds, and the pandemic isn't over until they stop doing that.

The pills _may_, if they work as advertised, be the point where we can just stop caring about unvaccinated people. But there are another couple of months to go, even assuming they work as well as expected.

(Also, I think there's at least a decent risk that many anti-vaxers will just refuse to take the pill anyway)

[maxerickson]

There isn't really a choice for such a fast spreading virus. If you wait until you are certain it is dangerous the response will be too late.

[JPKab]

I stopped trusting the media's reporting on covid when it became blatantly obvious that they were completely ignoring and obfuscating the risk stratification by age. It was clear to me that they were motivated to do this by elevating the desire to influence the behavior of the public over the duty to inform them with the actual facts.

They cynically assumed, just like the public health authorities did, that if the average Joe didn't personally feel at risk, they wouldn't change their behavior and would cause high-risk/elderly people to die out of negligence. Academics, I've noticed in my career working with them, are far more prone to view the public in this way. I'm sure a few of that variety will respond to this and tell me that yes, they can't be trusted.