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OWN VOICE. ~ InPerspective by Gregg Dieguez —
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…provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…
” Suppose we have two viruses, one that is twice as transmissible as the other. (For the record, Omicron is currently three to five times as transmissible as Delta in the U.K.—though that number is likely to fall over time.) And suppose it takes five days between a person’s getting infected and their infecting others. After 30 days, the more transmissible virus is now causing 26, or 64, times as many new cases as the less transmissible one. … If we are banking on the idea that Omicron is more mild to get us through winter, then we had better hope that it’s really, really mild. “[2]
the CDC says it's not omicron unless it comes from the Omicrônne region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling covid
— mike cella 🤌 (@mikeVcella) December 28, 2021
So, while we await real data on Omicron infectiousness and fatality, a little sensitivity analysis tells us that if Omicron is about 100 times LESS lethal than Delta, we’ll still have the same death rate as Delta – at least until it runs its course. It’s likely most of those deaths will be among the unvaccinated, but some will be people who are older and immunocompromised and whose vaccination won’t trigger a robust enough immune system response from their memory B and T cells. Whatever the death rate turns out to be, remember that it was NEEDLESS. We could have avoided those deaths and the lingering damage to our economy, our health care workers and system, and our longer term (Long COVID) health outcomes. Other countries largely defeated this virus by simple public health measures (testing, tracing, quarantine, masking) BEFORE there were even vaccines.
[insert updated table on avoidable deaths]
We could have avoided 45 to 90% of our deaths, if we had the same sense of Interdependent Self and Collective Responsibility that those other countries did. But we don’t, and the former world leader in Pandemic Response stands shamed before the world because while we have the Technology, we lack the Judgement and Willpower to use it in our own defense.
sotrovimab (made by GSK/Vir Bio) is the only EUA’ed mAb that is known to work against Omicron, and in very limited supply.
masks are now better, and needed.
Good News:
the right masks
vaccine boosters
only 5 day quarantine
lower hospitalization, and likely death rates
Who Are We, and Who are we going to be?
Whatever our choices, and our fate…
At any rate, we’ll be in good company…
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – The Who
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/who/wontgetfooledagain.html
[2] We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/covid-cases-omicron-highly-contagious/621038/
FDA analysis of test kits affected by Omicron?:
Alexander Tin, “Why antigen tests may still work well for Omicron, despite “reduced sensitivity” in lab studies.” CBS News, 30 Dec 2021.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-rapid-home-antigen-tests-detect-omicron-variant/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3a
NIH scientists caution that their lab finding is not evidence of a significant drop in the real-world performance of popular at-home tests, even in the “worst case scenario.” The FDA is collaborating with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) RADx program to study the performance of antigen tests with patient samples that have the omicron variant. . . Early data suggests that antigen tests do detect the omicron variant but may have reduced sensitivity (meaning, more false negative test results).
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/sars-cov-2-viral-mutations-impact-covid-19-tests#omicron-reduced
Headed to 1 million cases a day: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/30/omicron-variant-challenges-covid/
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More From Gregg Dieguez ~ InPerspective
Mr. Dieguez is a native San Franciscan, longtime San Mateo County resident, and semi-retired entrepreneur who causes occasional controversy on the Coastside. He is a member of the MCC, but his opinions here are his own, and not those of the Council. In 2003 he co-founded MIT’s Clean Tech Program here in NorCal, which became MIT’s largest alumni speaker program. He lives in Montara. He loves a productive dialog in search of shared understanding.