health

Study suggests past COVID infection may not fend off Omicron

21 Comments
By MIKE CORDER

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21 Comments
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And like the flu shot (not a vaccine)

Yes a vaccine, by any way to look at it and what it does. Also the flu shot is mandated for example for people working with vulnerable people, there are vaccines for dozens of things, including some that are less risky than COVID, and depending on the purpose people still needs to have them, specially in circumstances of outbreaks.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

has it been really effective or is this just what the big pharma’s want you to think???

Don't worry about it there are people whose job it is to determine if it's safe and effective.

Just consult your doctor about whether vaccines are right for you.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

So like the flu, it will never go away. And like the flu shot (not a vaccine) the covid shot will always be there with them tweaking it every year to try to keep up with the variants. So just like the flu shot it mustn’t be mandated. how long has the flu shot been available and has it been really effective or is this just what the big pharma’s want you to think???

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Another premature report.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Well, other variants are indeed not as safe as Omicron, but for young healthy people they are still safer than the vaccines....

Repeating something false that comes entirely from your imagination and is easily contradicted by the scientific consensus (since you have not been able to provide even one single institution of science or medicine that can support your mistaken claim) do not make it less false.

 For young healthy people, the risks from the vaccine are greater than from the virus, especially with Omicron.

The same applies here, even when explicitly asked to provide proof of this your only reply has been silence, that means that even you yourself can see how this is a false claim, even if you like to repeat it. In reality The risks from vaccines are a tiny microscopic portion of the actual risks from COVID, likely also including Omicron.

One of the best way to reduce the rates of COVID is vaccinating, and not taking the vaccine only comes with an important increase of the risks to the person health because of the infection by COVID, that is the opposite of avoiding risks.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

For young healthy people, the risks from the vaccine are greater than from the virus, especially with Omicron.

Yes, you keep repeating that like a mantra.

Won't make it true.

If it's true you'll be able to provide the data you based it on

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Youre doing really well making it sound like covid is safe =)

It's all relative. Covid has some risks (very little, if any, for Omicron) and the vaccine has some risks. For young healthy people, the risks from the vaccine are greater than from the virus, especially with Omicron.

There are some simple measures that can be taken to greatly decrease the Covid risks. The best way to avoid the vaccine risks is to simply not get it....

-5 ( +3 / -8 )

Well, other variants are indeed not as safe as Omicron,

Youre doing really well making it sound like covid is safe =)

1 ( +6 / -5 )

 but for young healthy people they are still safer than the vaccines

Repeating that over and over won't make it true.

Care to provide the stats regarding that age group where you based the assertion on?

How many died already due to the vaccines?

How many died due to covid?

2 ( +7 / -5 )

one could argue that Omicron could serve as an ideal vaccine ..

I guess it's good that you acknowledged at least that natural infection due to other variants is not ideal

Well, other variants are indeed not as safe as Omicron, but for young healthy people they are still safer than the vaccines....

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

one could argue that Omicron could serve as an ideal vaccine ..

I guess it's good that you acknowledged at least that natural infection due to other variants is not ideal

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I guess only time will tell. It could be the answer to our prayers or it could be the calm before a TERRIBLE storm.

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Yes, people who only get information from the MSM are still living in fear....

People that only get information from the MSM are the ones that fail to give proper attention to things of importance, and instead get terribly bad information well debunked by scientific data, like saying antibodies against other proteins of the SARS-CoV-2 are important, or that Omicron is some kind of universal mutation collection from other variants, when in fact it is not (nor it would mean what those people think).

Omicron is well discussed in scientific communications and literature, if anything ignoring mass and social media would be a much better thing to do, letting people ignore false appear to fear the vaccines or other measures against the pandemic and replacing it with actual information of value.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

Do people still care about this?

Yes, people who only get information from the MSM are still living in fear....

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

I guess that must be true since before Omicron reinfections were almost impossible.

That is false, studies have proved that reinfections were at levels congruent with vaccine breakthroughs, and that for some patients the second infection produce even more serious disease.

but the protection will still be far superior to that provided by the vaccines,

That is just an imaginary fact not supported by any data available, pulling things out of thin air only means you wish for that to be true, but since you can't find any proof of that (or proof that contradicts it) you have to make up facts.

 In contrast, natural immunity is not only against the spike protein, but includes other proteins that have not been mutated (or not as much), and which provides additional protection.

Non-neutralizing antibodies are completely irrelevant, you could have huge amounts of them but if by definition they do not help controlling the infection they are just something extra that do not help at all, for COVID the only neutralizing antibodies are produced against the spike protein, you may not like this, but it is still true and completely contradicts your guess.

I did hear from a reliable source that many of the same mutations found in other variants are all pooled into this Omicron variant. And since this variant so far appears to be very mild, just as mild if not milder than the effects of getting the vaccine, one could argue that Omicron could serve as an ideal vaccine

Your reliable source needs to prepare much more, there are many mutations that have been considered important antigenically that Omicron do not have, and obviously anything considered a mutation means it does not have antigenic epitopes of the original. For example of the 15 important mutations of the spike protein of Delta it only includes 5, and in another one an amino acid is not mutated but instead deleted. Just by comparing the primary structure of the protein it is obvious Omicron is not a "pool" of the other variants.

But even more important is that changes in antigenicity are not equivalent to single aminoacid changes, if you change two aminoacids that are close the result is not the same as changing one or the other but a third completely different configuration. That means that even if Omicron had all the mutations of the previous variants that would still mean the spike protein would be recognized as something different, not producing neutralizing antibodies against the previous variants.

2 ( +8 / -6 )

Well I hope infection with omicron protects against the other variants

I did hear from a reliable source that many of the same mutations found in other variants are all pooled into this Omicron variant. And since this variant so far appears to be very mild, just as mild if not milder than the effects of getting the vaccine, one could argue that Omicron could serve as an ideal vaccine ...

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

South African scientists are warning that reinfections among people who’ve already battled COVID-19 appear to be more likely with the new Omicron variant than with earlier coronavirus mutants.

I guess that must be true since before Omicron reinfections were almost impossible. So I guess the probability of reinfection has increased a bit, but the protection will still be far superior to that provided by the vaccines, which are still based on the original Wuhan WIV strain and most of which only provide immunity against the spike protein, which is heavily mutated in Omicron. In contrast, natural immunity is not only against the spike protein, but includes other proteins that have not been mutated (or not as much), and which provides additional protection.

A good thing is that vaccines are still predicted to protect from serious disease,

A good thing is that Omicron appears to be very mild and not cause serious disease. I believe most of the detected Omicron cases were people getting tested for other reasons than Covid, such as returning travelers or people hospitalized for something else. It does not make much sense to take a risky product that has caused serious disease and death in many thousands of people to protect against such a mild disease. There are a number of safer measures one can take to avoid any potential serious effects from the virus.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

Well I hope infection with omicron protects against the other variants

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Omicron could be our way out of this.

Hopefully it is, but that is still not clear. The problem with a variant that can infect people even if they had immunity (from a previous infection or vaccination) is that this increases the risks of further variants appearing, and nothing makes it impossible for those further variants to be again more pathogenic while keeping a high degree of capacity of spreading.

A good thing is that vaccines are still predicted to protect from serious disease, so this could complement very nicely the appearance of Omicron, a hopefully mild infection made even less dangerous and unlikely to persist until other variants are developed thanks to the vaccines.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

"People infected with the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus may have a tendency to show mild or no symptoms, although the variant’s infectiousness could be stronger than that of the delta variant, according to experts." [Japan Times.]

Omicron could be our way out of this.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

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