13 hours ago, sezze said:

"spreads 70 times faster " .... does he also work for tourist department , adding a 0 more at the end is still the same ? In the Western world , specialists say it spreads 2-3 times faster , but in Thailand 70 times ...

Can't comment on being more on the upper area instead of lungs , besides that it does appear to be less dangerous .

He got the number from the fact of it multiplying in bronchial areas 70x  faster than other strains of Covid.  Appears he did not understand what he read!

8 hours ago, Kadilo said:

Don’t worry too much. It’s pretty obvious where you are coming from for anyone who is capable of thinking for themselves. 

Ever tried adding something instead of insults? Since when has thinking for oneself been an exclusive attribute to one group of people only, especially the ones that believe in hidden agendas rather than the published science.

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

He got the number from the fact of it multiplying in bronchial areas 70x  faster than other strains of Covid.  Appears he did not understand what he read!

There is another far more likely possibility given that the guy is well qualified.

14 hours ago, coolcarer said:

You’re not going to find many real expert virologists or epidemiologists with their own YouTube channel, they are far to busy with their work in this pandemic. Producing a channel is timing consuming and a full time job. it also creates a conflict of interest on the money to be made from youtube. 
 

If they appear on youtube it’s normally through a third party interview.

Correct. And viewers should be aware that these clips released by third (or even 4th) parties can be and often are edited/doctored or ar a minimjm.taken out if context

 

It is not possible to conduct "research" via Youtube nor is it a good source of information on COVID or other current events.

 

It's OK for cat videos though.

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, coolcarer said:

Ever tried adding something instead of insults? Since when has thinking for oneself been an exclusive attribute to one group of people only, especially the ones that believe in hidden agendas rather than the published science.

Maybe he has absolutely nothing to add but insults.

When all else fails then just reduce everything to the social media lowest common denominator.

That's a large reason why huge parts of the developed world remain unvaccinated. People really do believe the basement conspiracy theorists.

On 12/25/2021 at 1:36 PM, Saanim said:

 

How important is to repeatedly wash the hands, never advising about the mouth? Do we breathe through our hands? (Don't shake hands, better to touch with fists?)

When some doctors in Thailand advised to gargle with Listerin, everybody laughed... 

Every day I wash my glasses, and I try to always wash hands after touching money.

On 12/25/2021 at 4:06 PM, ozimoron said:

Perhaps but likely not. Vaccines that survive are the ones which evade immunity. This is how we got omicron.

He meant to say: "Variants that survive are the ones which evade immunity."

22 hours ago, sezze said:

"spreads 70 times faster " .... does he also work for tourist department , adding a 0 more at the end is still the same ? In the Western world , specialists say it spreads 2-3 times faster , but in Thailand 70 times ...

Can't comment on being more on the upper area instead of lungs , besides that it does appear to be less dangerous .

I believe that the 70 times figure refers to the viral load compared to Delta.

I wonder, after Covid reduces to a bad cold and shows up in 98% of the people tested, will the whole of mankind send itself into quarantine to lock all doors, cower and throw the key down the toilet? Then peace will descend upon Earth.

19 hours ago, Stubby said:

Correctamundo! It's the regular news channels they've already appeared on posting... no... pushing.... what's already been aired. They're all over YouTube, so that the message doesn't get lost. But the poor sods who oppose these views (I'm talking about other experts, no some radom vlogger) get canceled for daring to disagree. I don't understand why no one can see what's been happening.

Look, if there are opposing views from equally qualified experts, we should be allowed to hear them on the same platforms. It's so wrong to block them from public media. How the heck is the layperson supposed to make well-informed decisions when they're only fed one-sided narratives. Geesh!

Your sentiments are understandable, but the public can get really confused by abstruse arguments, and this leads to vaccine hesitancy. A BBC show around March-April last year featured the chief scientist of WHO vs an Oxford epidemiologist who was part of the Great Barrington Declaration trio. I think that BBC was wrong to legitimize the Great Barrington line which stood for isolating the vulnerable and letting the virus run wild with everyone else. This group was still ravaging impressionable minds until fairly recently.

On 12/25/2021 at 12:43 PM, placnx said:

There is a problem in that Delta is still around in some countries including Thailand and US. While there's a shortcut to spotting Omicron with PCR, it depends on having the right brand of test, since they do not all detect the same genetic material. Of course, if it's a breakthrough infection, Omicron should be strongly suspected.

 

If people are not doing well, they need to be hospitalized regardless of which variant is in play, and with many more infections that can mean that hospitals fill up. It may seem innocuous on the individual level, but for the medical community it's a big problem.

And what shortcut is that? To the best of my knowledge, the type of strain of the virus can only be confirmed 100% by genomic sequencing i.e. examining the exact DNA of the virus? I’m open to correction though if you can substantiate your claims?

On 12/25/2021 at 2:20 AM, userabcd said:

Where did the flu go, it seems to have disappeared.

There's less of the flu due to the precautions taken because of Covid.  The worry is that some immunity to flu may be lost because of this. 

6 hours ago, Trip Hop said:

And what shortcut is that? To the best of my knowledge, the type of strain of the virus can only be confirmed 100% by genomic sequencing i.e. examining the exact DNA of the virus? I’m open to correction though if you can substantiate your claims?

https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/efficient-tracing-omicron-new-pcr-test

 

Other than the tests in above link,

Denmark developed their own variant PCR test and modified it early December, so their variant PCR tests could detect omicron without doing a full genome sequencing.

 

Edit. Here is also a link that describes the different terms in an easy way, because i think we all mix up strain, variant, mutation, RNA, DNA at times ????

 

https://www.cogconsortium.uk/what-do-virologists-mean-by-mutation-variant-and-strain/

20 hours ago, Trip Hop said:

And what shortcut is that? To the best of my knowledge, the type of strain of the virus can only be confirmed 100% by genomic sequencing i.e. examining the exact DNA of the virus? I’m open to correction though if you can substantiate your claims?

This link explains the concept of using PCR to detect Omicron.

https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/new-pcr-test-developed-jrc-can-detect-omicron-variant-latest-testing-eu-scientists-confirms

One of the widely used PCR tests looking at several locations on the spike protein came up with a blank on one location because there is a mutation at that location not found in other variants. This has been news for a while, and I don't have time to look for a specific quote.

 

Obviously, it's very important to know how Omicron is spreading, and sequencing is much less available and more time-consuming than PCR testing. Is PCR 100% accurate for detecting Omicron? If there is another variant out there with that same mutation, then no. 

On 12/25/2021 at 4:05 PM, Sheryl said:

 

 COVID-19 -- at least the severe form of it - is  in fact a vascular disease. It affects not just the lungs but also blood vessels throughout the body and there is a large autoimmune component to the severe form. Hence the value of steroids.

 

Initial hospital mortality rates were  much higher than they became precisely because it was originally, and wrongly,  assumed this was mainly a viral pneumonia and treated as such. A reasonable assumption at the time, but wrong. We now know much better.

 

Omicron seems to be a new entity in more ways than one and may prove to be virtually a different disease, perhaps even a form of common cold (corona virus variants of which already exist). But it is still early days to make any firm conclusions.

I'm in Australia and I've had covid for the past few days. It really does feel like an ordinary upper respiratory tract infection - like a fairly heavy cold - a cough, runny nose, occasional low fever, chills, sore throat and minor fatigue. I'm eating as usual and paracetamol controls the symptoms well enough. 

 

On a scale of 1 to 10 - where a 1 is being as slightly unwell as it's possible to feel, and a 10 being the sickest I've ever felt in my life (chicken pox, in my case), this is a three. Many cold and flu episodes I've had have been worse.