Re:Pfizer and BioNTech launch trial of Omicron-targeted Covi...
by lamontcg on Tuesday January 25, 2022 @11:47PM
(#30081847)
What needs to be done is a comparative study during an overlapping period of Delta and Omicron infection to rule all out all the confounding factors that happen when looking at waves in entirely separate time periods.
That got done recently for transmissibility recently with the Danish study (which finds no difference in intrinsic transmissibility between Omicron and Delta and that the advantage Omicron has is entirely immune escape):
Then your unvaccinated group that you're comparing to in the Delta and Omicron waves are equally susceptible to disease and any cryptic spread and immunity may be present but will be equal.
The South Africa study cannot do this which means they're comparing different time points and they have many confounding factors. That is not strong evidence.
Plus best they get is that Omicron is about 1/4 of Delta which is 1/2 of D614G which is still terrible. That is still just SARS-CoV-2 levels and not the factor of 10 that would turn it into influenza.
That got done recently for transmissibility recently with the Danish study (which finds no difference in intrinsic transmissibility between Omicron and Delta and that the advantage Omicron has is entirely immune escape):
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.27.21268278v...
Then your unvaccinated group that you're comparing to in the Delta and Omicron waves are equally susceptible to disease and any cryptic spread and immunity may be present but will be equal.
The South Africa study cannot do this which means they're comparing different time points and they have many confounding factors. That is not strong evidence.
Plus best they get is that Omicron is about 1/4 of Delta which is 1/2 of D614G which is still terrible. That is still just SARS-CoV-2 levels and not the factor of 10 that would turn it into influenza.