100 out of 120 participants to a Christmas dinner infected with Omicron. They were all vaccinated and tested negative before the dinner (according to the company). One attendee was back from SA 🇿🇦
Minor correction: I didn't see evidence that they've been all infected with omicron; the article only mentions that at least some of them had it. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if, after all tests are done, it turned out that they all had it.
This kind of superspreading events is why we should have traveler quarantines.
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💯 even if true that variants get trade off lethality for transmissibility over time, a hypothetical variant that is 20% less lethal but 20% more contagious kills more people than the original virus (because cases compound → larger exposure → more total deaths)
(I didn’t check the estimate Giullaume quoted; here, I was just commenting on his general point.)
That said, I question the hypothesis that variants always trade off lethality for transmissibility. While I understand that more transmissible variants get selected, I don’t see why a variant couldn’t be both more transmissible and more lethal.
Yes. Waves are partially due to seasonality, partially due to immunity fading / variants, and partially due to the virus filling a network fast📈, reaching herd immunity there📉, then finding access to another network📈
In the first tweet, by “the benefit/cost ratio increased”, I meant of vaccination. In other words, it’s more risky not to vaccinate now that it was a year ago, and it’s less risky to vaccinate now than it was in January.
(HT @maintcraft for pointing out the potential ambiguity)
This definitely matters (though I don’t know how much) and is usually missed by most models which – usual mistake – consider the population homogeneous.
If you asked if it matters, I’d say yes. I’d guess it explains a high percentage of wave behavior.
But if you asked me to list all causes, assign a percentage to each, and then normalize so that the total is 100%, I don’t think it’d be a very high %.
I hear that some think that an heterogeneous population has a lower herd immunity threshold, because the few superconnectors get infected first and stop connecting the groups.
But the superconnectors aren’t the only link between groups!
And probably reality is worse due to not having reach the top yet (probably)
For completeness: OTOH, the 75% vaccinated means that vaccinated cases contribute less to spread; OTOH, the asymptomatic vaccinated is also less likely to test, so in the numbers above I imagine that the two effects above cancel each other.
Take Italy: first wave was concentrated in Bergamo (North), if you lived in Southern Italy the chances that you knew someone that could infect you were very low.
But then cases diffused, and the chances you know someone you can take it from increase.