This is incorrect- if you consider reduction in intrinsic severity (*less* than the reduction in *observed severity* which is due to disproportionate infection of immune people) one would consider this about as severe as the original variant which was *much more* severe than flu.
This is important to consider given a large proportion of the globe, and even countries like the UK, US and Europe are not vaccinated. In the UK 30% remain unvaccinated.
and this is not even considering the impact of long COVID, which we currently don't even know with omicron, but even with the original variant, long COVID was an important consideration, causing multi-system damage and chronic illness in significant numbers.
You can't say a variant is less severe because it's disproportionately affecting people wouldn't have been infected by previous variants at all. For these people, the overall outcomes will in fact be worse with omicron than with delta simply because the infection risk is higher.
It's important communication around severity accounts for the risk of increased transmission, and the differences between the properties of the variant (intrinsic severity) and the observed severity due to who it infects.
Being 50% or so less severe intrinsically will not take this into flu range of severity- more into similar to or above original variant, but less than delta. And at population level, impact will also be determined by sheer numbers of cases.
Also the lower severity is compared to delta - which is far more severe than original, so it doesn't even take it to below original variant:
COVID has disproportionately affected disabled, clinically vulnerable, deprived & black/brown/indigenous communities. To say that that airborne precautions worsen inequity is BS. Rather, these protect *everyone*. If you care about equity, set air Q standards, provide respirators.
The WHO has done so much harm in this regard, & still continues to, because they simply cannot seem to acknowledge that they were wrong, and that very likely caused harm - which led to loss of life, and to chronic illness in many. We need accountability & learning here. Not lies.
If @WHO wants to restore any trust, they must acknowledge mistakes that have caused untold harm, and seek to show learning and change. None of this is happening when they say BS like this, and parade people like Farrar with more lies and BS to try to justify the unjustifiable.
I remember all those who told us that RAT sensitivity was near 100% to detect 'infectiousness' - this study reports 47% compared with RT-PCR and 80% compared with viral culture. The lowest sensitivity is for those who are asymptomatic, and also during the pre-symptomatic phase.🧵
Sensitivity of RATs tends to rise when symptoms begin, but there is infectiousness before this that may not be picked up. Apart from the obvious impacts on transmission, this also has v. important impacts on treatment for people who are clinically vulnerable.
For many people who are clinically vulnerable, the primary consideration is getting treatment to them on time. Given the low sensitivity of RATs against PCR, especially in the early periods of infection, treatment may be significantly delayed by reliance on RATs over PCR.
Just read this beautiful author's note after finishing Bloodmarked by @tracydeonn
This encapsulates my discomfort with how we tend to glorify surviving trauma as 'strength' & those who suffer as 'resilient', when they have no choice & cannot escape the violence aimed at them.
This is not to diminish in any way the lived experiences of survivors of trauma, but rather to re-iterate that being human and vulnerable means being able to fall apart, and not having to be 'strong' in the face of the cumulative grief & trauma of just living in the world we do.
People deserve not to have to live like this, rather than having their pain and suffering being glorified as 'strength' & 'resilience'. Rather than celebrating the impact of trauma, we should be seeking to build a society that doesn't require people to survive this amount of pain
The success of movements and their reach often depends on solidarity between these leading to advocacy on multiple related fronts. Health equality, disability advocacy, decolonialism, anti-racism, feminism, trans rights, climate justice, health & social equality, are connected🧵
Not all movement leaders see these connections. From my experience, it's often the least privileged groups, and/or groups with an understanding of systemic power structures (often because they are subject to systemic violence themselves) who understand these connections better.
I often see solidarity missing from movements like the COVID cautious movement, and even some advocating for long COVID. Often people with ME/CFS or other chronic illness, or disability are excluded, despite similarities and the v. long history of systemic violence against them.
This epidemiological history suggests there may be cow-to-cow transmission of H5N1 taking place (cows affected without clear exposure to poultry/birds), which is quite concerning. To date, mammal-to-mammal transmission has only been identified in experimental conditions. 🧵
H5N1 has been showing adaptation to mammals (PB2-E627K and PB2-D701N mutations)- which may explain the extensive transmission to mammals (sea lions, cats, foxes, and now cows) and high mortality among mammals affected over the past year.
There is spillover to humans that has also happened in some cases, but to date there is no clear instance of human-to-human transmission that has been identified (almost all cases have had contact with birds/poultry).
A huge point missing from the 'cumulative risk' discussion is that it's not just about the cumulative risk of developing long-COVID population-wide, but also what happens to the quality of life of those who have long COVID with subsequent infections. Or does no one care?
The limited research we have so far shows that this group is at high risk of worsening with each infection- significantly affecting their quality of life. Something not measured in cumulative risk studies- because those studies only measure new LC among those who don't have it
Given the high levels of prevalent long COVID in every single country (as shown by the ONS survey, the household pulse survey and others), shouldn't we also care about what repeated infection are doing to this very large population?