A Blast from Both Barrels


I had forgotten all about Alpha. It turns out there are three Covid variants - Alpha, Delta, and Omicron. The bad news is that some people may contract more than one either sequentially or at the same time.  

Cari van Schalkwyk and Juliet Pulliam, from the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling & Analysis (Sacema), and Harry Moultrie, from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, said that their research found Omicron was “associated with increased ability to evade immunity from prior infection”.

In an article on The Conversation, the trio explained that “a reinfection is defined as a positive SARS-COV-2 test more than three months after a previous positive test.

”We found that the relative risk of reinfection was much higher (at least 3-fold) with the Omicron variant than it was with the Beta and Delta variants,” they added.

Can you have both at the same time?

The evidence suggests that despite the previous infection, people can still catch the Omicron variant, which in turn means that there is “plenty of scope for the variants to exist side by side”, according to the i news site.

This is also compounded by the fact that Omicron appears to evade vaccines more successfully, meaning it can sweep through those who have had one or two jabs, while the Delta variant continues to infect the unvaccinated.

“We may have two simultaneous epidemics, one from Omicron and one from Delta,” said Professor Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia.

“This raises the concern about Delta and Omicron co-infections, where both variants infect the same person at the same time. In general co-infections of any respiratory viruses are associated with more severe disease and we certainly saw that early in the pandemic with Covid and influenza co-infections.”

What do you think? Are we heading back into lockdown? In South Africa, the doubling rate for Omicron has been 3.6 to 4 days. In the UK it's just 2 days.

Those who live and work in close quarters such as people on reserves or military installations are at greater risk of contracting contagious diseases such as meningitis and influenza. The same holds for Covid which, at the moment, seems to be spreading quickly on university campuses.  It is what has made Kingston the Ontario Covid hotspot today.

British Columbia has announced several new restrictions but they're well short of a lockdown. An Ipsos poll finds that 55 per cent of Canadians will accept another lockdown but there's little enthusiasm and support has dropped.

With Christmas still a week off there's no way of knowing if it will be a repeat of last year as far as family gatherings go.  I've had my three jabs and I've got my laminated provincial and federal vaccine passports but I don't expect to get much use out of them.

Good luck, everybody.

Comments

  1. TrailblazerDecember 17, 2021 at 7:11 PM

    Rather than knee jerk reactions to covid we will have to adjust to it's existence as we did with other aweful plagues .So far our fight with covid has been to preserve the status quo which surely is finished?
    Covid has upset not just the way we live but the measures we use to justify our lifestyles.
    Pity is global warming should have provoked a similar sea change but didn't.
    Now Neo liberalism , as we have been taught, is on the line and in danger of failure, the repercussions are going to be interesting .

    TB

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibDecember 18, 2021 at 11:32 AM

      I put up two posts today that you might find interesting, Trailblazer. One concerns the Sea of Mamara in Turkey that is now beset by what's called "sea snot." I draw upon a paragraph from paleontologist Peter Ward's 2007 book, "Beneath a Green Sky," to explain what this might mean - and it's chilling.

      Also chilling is a report from Global News about the extent of the anti-vaxxer/conspiracy theory fringe and how its members are acquiring both political power and financial clout. It sounds as though we have a problem here, one that isn't going away, and we've been taking it much too lightly.

      Delete
  2. GyorDecember 17, 2021 at 8:05 PM

    I say no to more lockdowns, we keep doing what we are told, we get the jabs, wear the masks, and so on and the virus still does what it wants and we still don't win. I refuse to live like this for the rest of my life, in a slow motion apolycpse. People want their lives back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibDecember 18, 2021 at 11:35 AM

      You can have your life back, Gyor. Just find a place to do it well removed from the rest of us. There is a world where you can test whether vaccinations, masks, social distancing, etc. really make a difference. There are a lot of like-minded people there who will invite you to join them.

      Delete
  3. lungtaDecember 17, 2021 at 9:51 PM

    I believe it revolves around doing what is essential.
    Covid lesson 1 , 2 and 3.
    Are you going to die if you don't see granny, holiday in the bahamas , have coffee with the boys?
    If the answer is no then it is not essential. Stay home
    It is this kind of thinking that leads to zero growth
    which in the face of everything else
    is essential

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibDecember 18, 2021 at 11:39 AM

      I'm with you on this one, Lungta. There is some good news. Omicron was first detected in South Africa. That has allowed South Africa to amass the data needed to evaluate this variant. Most other countries aren't there yet. The bad news is that Omicron is indeed massively transmissible. The good news is that it's far less deadly than we at first feared. The really bad news is that Delta and Omicron don't provide immunity against each other and, indeed, it is possible to contract both at the same time which, sadly, leads to a nasty outcome.

      Delete

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