Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I'm basing my opinion off of this mainly:

https://mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/s … 9619311616

I know there's other professionals who have already started their own twitter rant over how it's too premature to say anything. But those are, to my mind, opinions focused on evidence seeking from a scientific pov, and not from the point of view of risk management policies.

One of the great lessons of this whole pandemic is that when dealing with infectious diseases, strong preventive rather than strong reactive measures are your best go-to. Especially in the early stages.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-11-26 04:41:32)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

with that said, do let me know when you intimatately understand bonferroni corrections, spearman's rho, students t-tests, etc. i'm sure you're a whizz at the science of statistical significance and inferring meaningful results from data, what with all those engineering software programs you use to plug numerical values into pre-existing formulas, and all that CAD software you puzzle over. i almost forgot that you have research-level statistics under your belt as well.
Actually I did degree-level stats deriving all that kind of thing from first principals, you didn't.
Well done parroting other people's work though.

None of it really matters when the question is where this virus came from and we still don't know since the chinese have withheld the data.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-11-26 04:53:57)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Larssen wrote:

I'm basing my opinion off of this mainly:

https://mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/s … 9619311616

I know there's other professionals who have already started their own twitter rant over how it's too premature to say anything. But those are, to my mind, opinions focused on evidence seeking from a scientific pov, and not from the point of view of risk management policies.

One of the great lessons of this whole pandemic is that when dealing with infectious diseases, strong preventive rather than strong reactive measures are your best go-to. Especially in the early stages.
i agree with you that strong preventatIve > strong reactive. the trouble is that the stakes are so high.

i dare say that banning flights from south africa has its own economic (and racial) calculus. if this new variant appeared in new york or paris, people would probably weigh the balances a little more. as it is, it's totally inconsequential for european nations to pull up the drawbridge to botswana and south africa (which, sure, it's commendable). the point being, though, that there's relatively little economic self-injury implied in this decision. 'strong preventative' measures in another context could mean another $2 trillion stimulus package. owch.

Actually I did degree-level stats deriving all that kind of thing from first principals, you didn't.
Well done parroting other people's work though.
incredible. a scientist with a PhD-level grasp of empirical-statistical techniques spends all of his time on the internet parrotting pseudo-scientific claptrap about 'genetic bases for rape and violence' and 'china are definitely secretly spreading this thing'. if you're such a data-guru, why can't you find a single fucking solitary data set to back up any of your claims? better yet -- you do know that lots of this data is open access, right? why not use your remarkable 'first principles' knowledge to derive your own findings? WOWSERS!

Dilbert_X wrote:

first principals
spoken like a true career mathematician. how does one say ... Q.E.D.?

Last edited by uziq (2021-11-26 05:09:56)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I am not getting worked up over these variants. It was hard enough getting people to care before we introduced the Greek alphabet to the pandemic.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
dilbert: 'we've used all the greek alphabet already? what, is delta the last letter?'
WHO: NEW VARIANT OMICRON
dilbert: lol uzique can't read

uziq
Member
+492|3422
As an alarming new Covid variant spread to Europe on Friday, scientists warned that it would inevitably reach Britain, while ministers faced calls to urgently speed up the vaccination programme.
inevitably? what do you mean? all we have to do is do deep genomic sequencing on everyone, worldwide, everywhere, always, and then close all borders, totally, and stop all people moving, absolutely, and halt the movement of all goods, permanently, every time the virus appears. what do you mean INEVITAVBLY? where are all the technocrats to solve this problem?!?

B.1.1.529, or Omicron
B one one what now? why the silly high numbers? omicron? is that a transformers villain? there has only been 4 variants of covid. i read it on ABC news so i know it's true.

Belgium reported a case in a traveller who had been in Egypt and Turkey rather than southern Africa, suggesting community transmission, while cases were also detected in Israel and Hong Kong. Experts predict it is only a matter of time before it reaches Britain.
what do you mean its spread already even after early detection? it's quite simple: we must ban all travel forever and keep people in their homes. that way covid will get bored and disappear. just like the black death disappeared immediately after medieval padua quarantined. look at the case studies people! i read lots of history so i know!

The EU agreed there was a need to suspend flights from countries in southern Africa following restrictions announced by countries including the UK, Japan, Germany, Italy and Spain. The US and Canada also brought in travel curbs on Friday night.
brave, valiant EU. taking strong and decisive action. there's been one case detected in belgium already (meaning there's many more), as well as cases in turkey and hong kong, major destinations of flights for EU nations, but THAT'LL show those southern africans what's what! omicron will definitely, absolutely, never leave south africa. it's a done deal. we've banned travel! no more tourists gawping at the fauna in botswana!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

first principals
spoken like a true career mathematician. how does one say ... Q.E.D.?

You spotted a spelling mistake, congrats, you really earned your pay this week.

dilbert: 'we've used all the greek alphabet already? what, is delta the last letter?'
WHO: NEW VARIANT OMICRON
dilbert: lol uzique can't read
Now you're rambling, never said anything like that.

inevitably? what do you mean? all we have to do is do deep genomic sequencing on everyone, worldwide, everywhere, always, and then close all borders, totally, and stop all people moving, absolutely, and halt the movement of all goods, permanently, every time the virus appears. what do you mean INEVITAVBLY? where are all the technocrats to solve this problem?!?
Learn to spell inevitably.

Thankfully the technocrats are closing the borders by putting Africa back on 14 days quarantine.

If you want to do something useful you can go back and find the post where I said the next nasty variant will come out of Africa and should have been ringfenced back then.

Here opening the border to vaccinated but untested interstate arrivals lasted barely five days and they're back to needing a test if they're from 'safe' areas and needing quarantine otherwise.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Does the joke even roll with people who weren't genxer nerds or millennial children in the 80s? Even boomers know who Optimus Prime is. "Ha ha, Omicron, sounds like a Transformers villain!" I've been seeing that parroted a lot.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Someone at the WHO is fucking with us

An alien takes over the body of an Earthman in order to learn about the planet so his race can take it over.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191326/
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

People are making a bigger deal of this than there needs to be.

Xi, a common name. Nu, can be confused with new. Both letters skipped to avoid confusion and insult, part of the whole point of this labeling scheme. The Greek alphabet avoids adding stigma to the regions where variants are first identified. Part of that lesson stemming from the Spanish flu (those darn Spaniards). From wikipedia (I know):

The name "Spanish flu" is a misnomer,[6] rooted in historical othering of infectious disease origin, which is now avoided.[7] The pandemic broke out near the end of World War I, when wartime censors suppressed bad news in the belligerent countries to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain. These stories created a false impression of Spain as the epicenter, so press outside Spain adopted the name "Spanish" flu. Limited historical epidemiological data make the pandemic's geographic origin indeterminate, with competing hypotheses on the initial spread.[2]
In referring to the "Omicron variant of COVID-19" someone obviously isn't talking about Hasbro IP or pinning a horrible virus on G.I. Joe.

It's not a contest to see who can remember their Greek Letters in correct order. The people calling out the WHO on skipped lettering with mischievous glints in their eyes probably doublechecked Wikipedia's article on the Greek alphabet first before tip-tapping their snarky quips into twitter. I doubt a lot of those gotcha internet types could describe many scientific and mathematical uses for those letters let alone form a thought in ancient Greek.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Does nobody think maybe the Greeks find this insulting?

SARS-19-1 -2, -3, -4 wouldn't have been too complicated.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
So what is uziq going to say about this?

Israel is to ban foreigners from entering the country for 14 days and use surveillance to halt the spread of the new Covid strain, local media report.

The ban is expected to come into effect at midnight on Sunday, following full cabinet approval.

Israel has so far confirmed one case of the potentially more infectious Omicron strain first detected in South Africa.
.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59448547

bUt Teh vAcCinEs pRotEcT uS
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Words come from somewhere. "Variant" Old French, from Latin. If any (probably nonexistent) person is insulted by that, they should grow thicker skin. You could make your tongue-in-cheek argument for numbers if they'd gone with Variant-1, Variant-2, Variant-3 etc. (an insult to the people numbers originated from!). Calling B.1.617.2 "Delta" seems like a perfectly fine way to refer to a significantly impactful variant along maybe simultaneously developing mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 lineage without getting into clunky stuff like Variant-3.58, Variant-4.67 which would ruin the whole point of simplifying discourse.

I honestly don't think a lot of people could point out Greece on a map let alone mentally link the Greek alphabet with the country and its people. We aren't calling these things Greece variant or Agape variant for reasons already discussed. Further, the Greek alphabet was already in use by the science community for many purposes. The Greeks are fine. The facepalm here is all the emphasis placed on how some Greek letters line up with things in popular culture.

Imagine being that Captain Trips guy from the Stephen King novel. Your name is remembered for the thing that wiped out the vast majority of humanity.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

People calling it the China virus followed by a boost of acts of violence against Asian people. Hmm, I wonder why WHO is being careful.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Dilbert_X wrote:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59448547

bUt Teh vAcCinEs pRotEcT uS
Spoken like a rag journalist putting together their next misleading article. "Omicron variant makes drug companies question their vaccine's effectiveness!"

Hot dilbert take: vaccines don't work
Small print: testing in progress for the omicron variant, too early to tell, may need boosters. More vaccines in our future.

Vaccines are updated as needed. You can get a flu shot every year for the battery of flu variants expected to hit. Thinking about going in for my quadrivalent shot soon.
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

first principals
spoken like a true career mathematician. how does one say ... Q.E.D.?

You spotted a spelling mistake, congrats, you really earned your pay this week.

dilbert: 'we've used all the greek alphabet already? what, is delta the last letter?'
WHO: NEW VARIANT OMICRON
dilbert: lol uzique can't read
Now you're rambling, never said anything like that.

inevitably? what do you mean? all we have to do is do deep genomic sequencing on everyone, worldwide, everywhere, always, and then close all borders, totally, and stop all people moving, absolutely, and halt the movement of all goods, permanently, every time the virus appears. what do you mean INEVITAVBLY? where are all the technocrats to solve this problem?!?
Learn to spell inevitably.

Thankfully the technocrats are closing the borders by putting Africa back on 14 days quarantine.

If you want to do something useful you can go back and find the post where I said the next nasty variant will come out of Africa and should have been ringfenced back then.

Here opening the border to vaccinated but untested interstate arrivals lasted barely five days and they're back to needing a test if they're from 'safe' areas and needing quarantine otherwise.
it's already in europe/the UK. community transmission was established way beyond any traceable link to south africa.

banning travel is clearly highly effective.
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

So what is uziq going to say about this?

Israel is to ban foreigners from entering the country for 14 days and use surveillance to halt the spread of the new Covid strain, local media report.

The ban is expected to come into effect at midnight on Sunday, following full cabinet approval.

Israel has so far confirmed one case of the potentially more infectious Omicron strain first detected in South Africa.
.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59448547

bUt Teh vAcCinEs pRotEcT uS
i literally have no problem with travel measures that involve testing, self-isolation, and vaccine certificates.

i have always suggested it as a reasonable 'new normal' for air travel.

absolute travel bans haven't worked already. the horse has bolted. this round of travel bans will last as long as the general ban on UK travel from the 'UK variant', i.e. for one month at most during the worst of winter, and will do little to nothing to stop the spread of the new variant.
uziq
Member
+492|3422

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59448547

bUt Teh vAcCinEs pRotEcT uS
Spoken like a rag journalist putting together their next misleading article. "Omicron variant makes drug companies question their vaccine's effectiveness!"

Hot dilbert take: vaccines don't work
Small print: testing in progress for the omicron variant, too early to tell, may need boosters. More vaccines in our future.

Vaccines are updated as needed. You can get a flu shot every year for the battery of flu variants expected to hit. Thinking about going in for my quadrivalent shot soon.
dilbert doesn't understand how vaccines work and how the future of vaccines will pan out. he's shown several times that his grasp of the science behind this stuff is about on a level with jay's general grasp on any form of mental activity.

needs to go back and study his first principals.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Jay can make cuts and measurements for deck building. Presumably does stuff with air conditioning. That's more mental activity than Dilbert has ever brought to bear on vaccine science. Of the two, I think Jay's still the bigger jerk. He seriously needs to come back and give us updates on random home improvements and the latest on how little he enjoys the company of his children, wife, in-laws, whatever. I can tell him about the two additional Christmases I got to spend with my folks.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I care little for Anthony Fauci or however you spell his name. He seems to have been setup to be the lightening rod for right wing anger. He is smart enough to be aware of this.

I am really annoyed by right wingers who are now super angry that Anthony F.'s agency funds research on animals.

1. None of the people complaining about animal research really care about the suffering of animals. Same group of people who mock PETA. Stuff their faces full of dead animals while pretending to care about dogs.

2. The right wingers who feel bad about dogs getting experimented on show no such compassion for the downtrodden humans of the world. People who are tweeting about Anthony F. funding research on dogs are the same group of people advocating for flipping over refugee boats or putting mines on the border.

Twice hypocrites. Literally one of the worst sins.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Complaining about the suffering of animals in laboratories from the spectator seat of an American rodeo, yehaw.

Nobody in the know is surprised at any of this. It's a meme with abortion politics too. They care about you, but only until you're born.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Omnicron variant that spooky? Biden it talking about it on T.V. Think we will close down this winter? I can't imagine America going into another lockdown.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
The jury is still out on that one, but it's clear that many countries are taking extra precautions - to the point of closing all borders for some.

Honestly it's like a repeat of initial covid lockdowns and it surprises me. I don't know what the leadership in these countries are expecting. If Omicron really does circumvent vaccines completely, it will take at least 6-9 months for an updated vaccine to be rolled out in any number. Up to a year in any significant manner. If it is just as contageous as delta or even more so, it's very unlikely that any country can hold it off for more than a few weeks at best & closing down air traffic entirely for another half a year or longer would be ruinous to the industry and our collective economies.

Closing borders may slow the spread somewhat and I'm generally in favour of preventive measures as stated earlier, and do feel it's wise to tread carefully while there are so many unknowns, but if the variant really is a worst case, we might want to just fundamentally reconsider our chosen strategies with this disease.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-11-29 09:33:52)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
if the variant is more contagious than delta but causes less severe illness, it would be in everyone's interests to keep borders open. a more competitive variant could out-transmit delta and actually suppress a more harmful strain.

this is why speculation before we know anything isn't worth a whole lot.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
Depends on the percentages tbh.

From what I understood it's unlikely the symptoms of covid will change very much, as there's much less/no evolutionary incentive for the disease to develop either more aggressive or mild sickness characteristics. By the time a patient progresses into severe illness, the virus has already spread itself to various other hosts.

Among the variants the most important evolution appears to be its reproduction number, as that is what drives competition between the different strains. Mutations that end up dominant are the ones that cause the most succesful (re)infection rate. Any other mutations associated with more or less severe sickness are more likely to be the result of evolutionary randomness imbedded in the variant that is best at reproducing vis-a-vis the other strains.

Again this is derived from my limited understanding of viral evolution and some stuff I've read in different places. It seems the most logical explanation on what to expect.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-11-29 12:34:42)

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