"Just like previous variants, omicron is hospitalizing people, and it is killing people."
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Which countries? The article only mentions the United States. Is this something like the “World Series”? Doesnt belong on !worldnews@lemmy.ml in my opinion.
doesn’t worldwide just mean news from countries all over the world (including the us), doesn’t necessarily have to be anything specific that applies to all countries worldwide, no?
Okay but then the title is completely misleading, because it says “worldwide”. So you could say that the title is misinformation.
yeah, title is not appropriate, if not misleading, it’s definitely incomplete
@uthredii@lemmy.ml could you please change the post title to remove “worldwide”, and mention that its about the United States?
@AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml Maybe the community could have a rule that the title must accurately reflect the content of the article?
I would prefer not to change the title because:
It does include comments from WHO that are not specific to the US:
The post title is the same as the article title.
I’ll make a post soon asking for feedback on how “world news” should be defined, extending that old thread we had on that.
It also says “W[orld]H[ealth]O[rganisation] warns” - seems OK imo.
As a disclaimer, I believe COVID is real and the antivaxx conspiracy theories are absolutely ridiculous. That being said, literally in the first paragraph of this article it does say “…omicron does appear to be less severe compared to delta—especially in those vaccinated…” Peer-reviewed medical studies out of South Africa (which has a very robust healthcare system - that’s why these variants are often first identified there in the first place) show it may be 80% less likely to result in hospitalization and other research may suggest it’s 90% less likely to result in hospitalization or death. The numbers in the US (the ones I’m most familiar with, sorry) also suggest less hospitalization and death from this new variant. While cases right now are absolutely DWARFING last winter’s surge, we aren’t seeing comparable rates of hospitalization, ICU hospitalization or death.
Cases:
Hospitalizations:
ICU Hospitalizations:
Deaths:
These data are from CovidActNow, a non-profit organization which has been dedicated to tracking COVID numbers in the US since March 2020, despite the previous administration’s efforts to downplay the pandemic. They’re doing good work.
COVID is very real, very nasty, and to be taken seriously. But please keep in mind that news outlets in a capitalist society are in the business of manufacturing hysteria and keeping people engaged, much like corporate social media companies.
TL;DR Be careful but don’t panic. Do your own thinking and research.
One thing to watch out for is that (ICU) Hospitalizations and deaths even more so lag behind the numbers for cases. So looking at these numbers right now is probably still inconclusive.
But I very much like that you posted these graphs, that’s something you can properly discuss as opposed to all those comments regarding COVID-19 that just voice feelings without backing anything up.
The right: Covid is just like the flu! Stop worrying about it!
Also the right: The flu kills more people than covid (it doesn’t BTW)!
In 2022 Covid is just like a flu. Does that make me right?
It seems to be “just a flu” if you are vaccinated.
Or if you are under 50.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
Just looking at deaths is an oversimplification. A lot of people under 50 had to go to hospital with Covid-19 and might have died without care (i.e. if hospitals would have gotten overwhelmed). Also there is a significant number of younger people with long lasting symptoms after recovery and even permanent lung damage.
Yes thats what hospitals are for, to treat people when they get sick. Please give statistics for number of people eith permanent lung damage or similar.
Very few people under 50 have to go to hospital with the endemic flu.
I’ll try to find the study again about permanent lung damage, but I doubt there are good statistics on that and long covid yet. The real damage will likely only be known a few years after the pandemic.
It makes you right, in the sense that right means correct
How does Omicron compare to the flu, are there any usable numbers yet?
Not really. People say it’s like the flu but AKAIK that’s more gut feeling than real data.
There are excess mortality numbers that especially given how the covid-19 measures also reduced flu deaths, show that Covid-19 is massively worse than the endemic flu.
I don’t doubt that, do you have any numbers though, perhaps even for Omicron? I’d absolutely love for Omicron or a following variant to be as mild or milder than the flu because I am really getting tired of all of this.
Its pretty obvious that Covid is getting less dangerous. Just have a look at the daily number of deaths in Spain (source). Meanwhile number of infections per day is reaching record highs, meaning each infection is less and less dangerous.
This is a normal development with more and more people having partial immunity through recovery or vaccination. That the virus itself might become less deadly is at best a minor factor and not clear at all yet.
Covid vaccination started in Spain on 27th December 2021, just in between the second and third wave you can see in the graph. As you can see, the second wave was already much less deadly than the first, and that was without lockdown. And so far only 15% of the population were ever infected with Covid. So its not clear to me that these two factors had a major influence.
The second/third wave was not less deadly at all, the curve was just flatter due to non-pharmaceutical interventions. It would have far exceeded the first wave if hospitals would have been overwhelmed. As for the 15%… that is very likely an significant underestimation as Spain AFAIK isn’t testing randomly for antibodies.
Excess mortality only compares the typical number of deaths in previous years with those of of the current year. This is not detailed enough to give any hint about virus variants but it does show if there is something causing an unusual amount of deaths. Both 2020 and 2021 show significant spikes and by all likeliness it is Covid-19 that has caused this.