the get lucky scenario
Jan. 2nd, 2022 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdLet's talk about what I have been thinking of as the Goldilocks scenario, but which I've revised recently to the Get Lucky scenario...
...for COVID-19.
A Goldilocks scenario for COVID would be a variant that is both incredibly contagious but functionally harmless. Something that you don't even notice you have, basically all the time. Someone that sends no one not immunocompromised to the doctor and kills no one. And something that makes you mostly immune to both itself and other variants.
I've been watching Omnicron fairly closely since it started showing up in South Africa, both because of the obscene infection rate and the stunning decline in infections after that spike.
It's contagious like measles, which very few people remember, which is a nightmare. You're almost certainly going to get it.
That's either stage one of disaster - particularly given how good it's been at reinfecting people who have already had another COVID variant - or of a Goldilocks.
And it's looking like the improved outcome impact - particularly but not just for the vaccinated - isn't just in the laboratory. It just doesn't replicate as well in the lungs, due to mutations that cause it difficulty in attaching to the update receptors in the lungs that previous variants have been using. It's amazeballs at replicating in the throat - 70 times better than Delta - which gives you the world's worst sore throat ever and is why it's so unbelievably contagious. But it's just not nearly as good as previous variants at working those delicate lung tissues.
So far.
Mind you, if you are unvaccinated, Omicron can and will still fuck you up, but good. It can kill you ugly, it can give you Long Covid, and if it can do that it can also give you long-term major organ damage, which is most certainly a big chunk of what Long Covid actually is.
But if you're vaccinated, even more than six months ago, that's looking... fairly unlikely, compared to previous versions. Something that can still happen, but it's looking, again... fairly unlikely. That's what the curves are showing so far.
And if you're vaccinated and boosted... it's probably not going to happen. Those numbers are damn near flat.
It can still happen. But it's really unlikely. So far.
So if you're vaccinated and boosted...
...that's looking a whole lot like stage two of a Goldilocks scenario.
And the researcher (and vaccine development leader) I refer to as Doctor Furry on Twitter has been doing a lot of research and reporting on resistance to reinfection after Omicron... and it protects against Delta, and all other previous variants as well.
Getting Omicron is not as effective as vaccine plus booster, but it's good enough to matter.
For the vaccinated, and even more certainly for the vaccinated plus boosted...
...this is starting to look like a Goldilocks scenario.
But there's a huge anti-vaccination movement here that the Republican Party - the Party of Plague - has been fostering and boosting and courting and rallying. For them, it's not Goldilocks. It'll still kill and maim a lot of them, but even with that...
...the odds aren't too bad that they might well just get lucky.
And that's why I'm calling this a possible Get Lucky, not a Goldilocks.
Because if you're not vaccinated, that's what it is.
But if you are vaccinated, this is looking like it just might be a Goldilocks.
And if all this holds true, and if the rest of the world including us sees the kind of infection falloff rate in South Africa, and a few other countries which had Omicron early, if if if...
...if all that holds...
...this could be basically over in the US by May.
Not completely over as in gone forever, but over as in but over enough. And this time, for real.
I'm by no means saying this is definitely going to happen. Gods only know what other mutations we could get. (Which isn't necessarily bad, there's some real interesting speculation about what's happening in Japan that I'm not qualified to analyse.)
But I'm saying it could happen, if all these factors we're seeing actually play out the way we're seeing them playing out now.
So for the love of god get vaccinated, if you're not. If you are, get boosted as soon as possible. Be ready to ride out the next six weeks, because it's bad now, and it'll almost certainly get worse before it gets better. January could be even more of a nightmare than right now.
But for the first time in a while, I'm seeing signs of light past this storm. It could be an illusion, a mirage, an overly optimistic reading of early data. It could be lightning, a new, worse mutation - a second Black Swan.
But for once, in this whole miserable mess, maybe it's time. Maybe this time, finally...
...we get lucky.
...for COVID-19.
A Goldilocks scenario for COVID would be a variant that is both incredibly contagious but functionally harmless. Something that you don't even notice you have, basically all the time. Someone that sends no one not immunocompromised to the doctor and kills no one. And something that makes you mostly immune to both itself and other variants.
I've been watching Omnicron fairly closely since it started showing up in South Africa, both because of the obscene infection rate and the stunning decline in infections after that spike.
It's contagious like measles, which very few people remember, which is a nightmare. You're almost certainly going to get it.
That's either stage one of disaster - particularly given how good it's been at reinfecting people who have already had another COVID variant - or of a Goldilocks.
And it's looking like the improved outcome impact - particularly but not just for the vaccinated - isn't just in the laboratory. It just doesn't replicate as well in the lungs, due to mutations that cause it difficulty in attaching to the update receptors in the lungs that previous variants have been using. It's amazeballs at replicating in the throat - 70 times better than Delta - which gives you the world's worst sore throat ever and is why it's so unbelievably contagious. But it's just not nearly as good as previous variants at working those delicate lung tissues.
So far.
Mind you, if you are unvaccinated, Omicron can and will still fuck you up, but good. It can kill you ugly, it can give you Long Covid, and if it can do that it can also give you long-term major organ damage, which is most certainly a big chunk of what Long Covid actually is.
But if you're vaccinated, even more than six months ago, that's looking... fairly unlikely, compared to previous versions. Something that can still happen, but it's looking, again... fairly unlikely. That's what the curves are showing so far.
And if you're vaccinated and boosted... it's probably not going to happen. Those numbers are damn near flat.
It can still happen. But it's really unlikely. So far.
So if you're vaccinated and boosted...
...that's looking a whole lot like stage two of a Goldilocks scenario.
And the researcher (and vaccine development leader) I refer to as Doctor Furry on Twitter has been doing a lot of research and reporting on resistance to reinfection after Omicron... and it protects against Delta, and all other previous variants as well.
Getting Omicron is not as effective as vaccine plus booster, but it's good enough to matter.
For the vaccinated, and even more certainly for the vaccinated plus boosted...
...this is starting to look like a Goldilocks scenario.
But there's a huge anti-vaccination movement here that the Republican Party - the Party of Plague - has been fostering and boosting and courting and rallying. For them, it's not Goldilocks. It'll still kill and maim a lot of them, but even with that...
...the odds aren't too bad that they might well just get lucky.
And that's why I'm calling this a possible Get Lucky, not a Goldilocks.
Because if you're not vaccinated, that's what it is.
But if you are vaccinated, this is looking like it just might be a Goldilocks.
And if all this holds true, and if the rest of the world including us sees the kind of infection falloff rate in South Africa, and a few other countries which had Omicron early, if if if...
...if all that holds...
...this could be basically over in the US by May.
Not completely over as in gone forever, but over as in but over enough. And this time, for real.
I'm by no means saying this is definitely going to happen. Gods only know what other mutations we could get. (Which isn't necessarily bad, there's some real interesting speculation about what's happening in Japan that I'm not qualified to analyse.)
But I'm saying it could happen, if all these factors we're seeing actually play out the way we're seeing them playing out now.
So for the love of god get vaccinated, if you're not. If you are, get boosted as soon as possible. Be ready to ride out the next six weeks, because it's bad now, and it'll almost certainly get worse before it gets better. January could be even more of a nightmare than right now.
But for the first time in a while, I'm seeing signs of light past this storm. It could be an illusion, a mirage, an overly optimistic reading of early data. It could be lightning, a new, worse mutation - a second Black Swan.
But for once, in this whole miserable mess, maybe it's time. Maybe this time, finally...
...we get lucky.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 10:06 am (UTC)I mean it. May.
If we get really lucky...
...it might be March.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 10:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-04 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 12:50 am (UTC)I know and like a guy in my neighbourhood who went to hospital over temporarily increased turbidity in the tap water - he got wrecked by a bacterium that no one except the severely immunosuppressed would ever even notice. He did recover, but it was touch and go.
But if this all holds up (a big if! still!) and if you can get through this still in the clear... then, again, if we get lucky... things should be a lot safer for you and him and everybody else I know in your position... by... late spring.
Like - a lot safer. Safest-since-2019 safer.
If this holds up.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 09:38 pm (UTC)It'll be maybe 70% effective. But once they've all had it, they've basically all had a shitty version of the vaccine that won't work as well and hey it's also really dangerous and some of you are dead and a bunch if you have long-term health impacts, so that's fun, but by god, you didn't take the Fauci Ouchie, right?
Christ, these people are evil and stupid.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-05 09:54 pm (UTC)Now that they're splitting over Trump and vaccinations, maybe some of 'em will snap out of it. (They have to choose between Trump and QAnon specifically over vaccines, and they're taking it badly. It's delightful.)