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Home » And introducing – the Omicron variant

And introducing – the Omicron variant

The New Neo Posted on by

As expected, a new COVID variant has emerged. This time it seems to have come from South Africa, and it’s been named Omicron (I wonder – should Greek people feel insulted that the variants are designated by Greek letters?).

I’ve read a few articles about it and the consensus is that we know very little at this point except that it has a higher-than-usual number of mutations, which in turn indicates that it evolved in an immune-compromised person such as an AIDS patient. In other words, it had a longer time to remain active and replicate in that person’s body without being fought off.

Everything else is speculation, most of it alarmist. The variant “may” carry a bigger risk of reinfection. It “may” be more transmissible. It “may” be resistant to the vaccines. There’s no indication it’s more serious in the type of COVID cases it causes or the populations it infects.

The general rule of subsequent virus mutations is that they become more transmissible but less virulent. There are exceptions to that rule, however. This variant may or may not be an exception. We simply don’t know yet.

One thing we do know is that variants will come. We also can predict that many governments will use the news of those variants to clamp down further on people, and that the media will use that same news to frighten people.

The US and other nations have now banned travel from South Africa. The South African health minister says that’s unwarranted:

He slammed other nations for “wanting to put blame” and ascribing the variant to South Africa rather than working collaboratively to address the situation as guided by the WHO.

“Covid-19 is a global health emergency. We must work together, not punish each other,” Phaahla said…

Phaala said preliminary studies suggest the variant may be more transmissible due to is genetic composition but noted that vaccines are still effective in preventing severe Covid from the variant.

That sounds a lot like the Delta variant to me, if it’s true.

[NOTE: The US travel ban is for the following nations: South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi. Do I hear cries of “Joe Biden is a racist”? No? Why not? Is it because his name isn’t “Donald Trump” and he’s not a Republican?]

Comments

And introducing – the Omicron variant — 95 Comments

  2. CNBC this morning was brutal already talking about lockdowns and more. Thankfully I could only watch for a short while. The panic/hysteria is going to be high on this one.

  3. It is possible that Laura Ingraham of Fox was the first person to employ the extremely useful term “the forever pandemic.” Whether or not that is the case, it is undeniable that the instilling of fear in the citizenry over new variant after new variant allows Western governments (not only ours, but, worst of all, those of Austria and Australia) to exercise more and more authoritarian control and to impose more and more draconian policies.

  4. Griffin:

    That’s irrelevant. The authorities have no idea who the person was in whom the mutation originated. The first diagnosed patients are not the same as the original patient, who will probably always remain unknown. It’s the original patient who may have been an AIDS patient.

    Not that it’s especially relevant to anything, anyway.

  5. j e:

    I can’t find the post right now, but I said long long ago that variant after variant would come and they would make a big deal about each one, and it would keep going on. I didn’t use a catchy phrase like “the forever pandemic,” though.

  8. Griffin:

    It wasn’t offered as a fact, just a theory because of the number of mutations. It’s not a fact that could ever be known, anyway, because patient zero can’t be known.

  9. The FDA needs to approve the Pfizer therapeutic PDQ. Enough with these “vaccines” lasting four months or so.

  10. neo,

    I know but my point is that like 24 hours into this thing all kinds of proclamations are being made and it would be nice if there was a little evidence for some of it.

    And again this link to a doctor in South Africa that paints a much different picture.

    https://twitter.com/aginnt/status/1464335678821609473

    I’m so damn tired of the fear porn and what it leads to.

  12. Botswana and Namibia are on my short list of places to visit when the societal mania subsides and I can travel internationally without a vaccine passport. Why settle for America’s ersatz third world cities when I can visit the real third world and meet people who respect tourists.

  13. Griffin:

    But they’re in the business of speculating about things that are not known, and in particular of sowing fear.

  14. Yeah, other than it arising in Africa where there are lots of HIV sufferers, I’m not sure why that’s a more convincing explanation than it arising in a vaccinated person.

  15. Like I said in the previous open thread, the vital piece of information missing is the severity of the illness with this new bug.

    I don’t give a rat’s pitootie if it spreads like gasoline on a wildfire if it’s like most of the Corona viruses with live with constantly. This constant testing is panicking people and giving the perfect storm for governments.

  16. neo,

    Agreed. But I don’t have to accept it.

    And again it wouldn’t be that important what a bunch of scientists say on twitter if we hadn’t all seen how this plays out. It ends up with schools closed and people’s lives completely disrupted.

  17. physicsguy,

    That link to Aaron Ginn’s twitter I posted above from the SA doctor seemed to say they are mostly seeing mild cases right now.

  18. The other thing about the new variant is it’s a great cover for the underperformance of the vaccines and now allows for the authoritarians to lockdown the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated.

    ‘The vaccines were working great until this dangerous new variant’ they will say.

  19. Charles Glasser notes that “The last COVID strain was called ‘Nu.’ Going down the Greek alphabet, today’s new variant is called ‘Omicron.’ The W.H.O. wouldn’t want to offend China, now, would they?”

    The Greek letter that was skipped over is ‘Xi’; see the illustration at https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/487724/

  20. Whether you call it the forever pandemic or the permademic, if they keep using up the Greek alphabet at this rate, they are going to run out of letters.

    This is only the fifth named variant, per the NYP, and the WHO honchoes are already up to Omicron, even though there are NINE OTHER LETTERS after Delta.

    https://www.rapidtables.com/math/symbols/greek_alphabet.html

    There are only 9 letters still to go, so maybe they will reach the end and then stop.

  21. If they called it the “ Systemic Apartheid Variant” would that be “racist” or acknowledging “ systemic racism”?

  22. ” The variant “may” carry a bigger risk of reinfection. It “may” be more transmissible. It “may” be resistant to the vaccines. ”

    Name the variant that was not introduced in exactly this way.

  23. Griffin (4:31 pm) said that “they don’t know but if they are going to make the claim that is was an HIV/AIDS patient how about a little proof.”

    I believe the accepted and acceptable phraseology these wonderful days is “claimed without evidence.”

    (Or is it only right-leaners that are expected to supply supporting evidence with every [d#mn] assertion they put forth? It sure would make for time-consuming and convoluted “conversations” — exchanges? diatribes? — if we’re held to that standard.)

  24. There are news accounts from Thursday that stated it was expected to be named”Xi” — but this fact is being digitally erased already. UNs WHOis CCP Commie controlled and is nobody friend.

    Dr John Campbell has the extensive run down concluding “have we learned nothing from the past?” Calling for stopping all indicative air travel vectors from SA and certain African nations (and quite likely more, such as Belgium) NOW! Because later will be too late to slow it’s spread!

    https://youtu.be/oxlYyZ08cEg

    And because we need more time to accumulate knowledge about it to characterise this new threat.

    His guess? More infectious? Yes.
    (One commenter from SA claims a newspaper report states 500% more transmissible than the Delta or Indian variant — which my eyeball says it’s in the measles ball park.)

    More symptomatic? (The Dr. speculates that it is probably as much as Delta or less.)

    More deadly? We just do not know yet.

    I’m pretty sure my rendering of Dr Campbell’s summary is off and not accurate. But I’ll share it nonetheless because I have no time now to check it.

    A Johannesburg newspaper reports that the government will meet Sunday to confer about the new crisis. Expect this meeting to generate headlines for Monday morning if not that Sunday night in the America’s.

    Think of Campbell cry: it’s spread from African nations to Hong Kong, Israel, Belgium, and SA.

    And it’s doubling time is the fastest yet. Is there anyway you to slow his juggernaut?

    Only quarantine (ie, isolation) or cutting off travel vectors. That’s it. Beyond this, the threat posed is uncertain. And yet we’re deeply virus fatigued.

    A new Vax would take 100 days to develop, longer to manufacture and deploy. Let all hope we’re lucky. Because like rust, the Covid 19 virus never sleeps.

  25. Because like rust, the Covid 19 virus never sleeps.

    Anyone want to take bets on how long it will take Fauci to strut before the cameras and smugly tell us that “Americans will just have to suffer and sacrifice some more”– before he takes off for yet another party where “our betters” don’t wear masks but the waitstaff does?

  27. TJ,

    All those things you listed are the same they have said about every variant and for the most part they have not ended up being accurate.

    At this point blanket travel bans cannot be an answer. This has to stop we don’t live in 1754 or whatever. International travel cannot be suspended willy nilly every few months.

    That Babylon Bee article called something like ‘Experts Recommend Taking All The Same Actions That Didn’t Work Before’ is like so many things from the Bee amazing accurate.

  28. TJ,

    Linking Eric Ding whatever says all I need to know. He has been the king of panic porners from day one and nobody should give any credence to anything he says.

  30. Cite me an example of “low trust” but I think it an example of confirmation bias to assume that this latest variant is a natural mutation of the Covid 19 virus. I think it just as possible that the C.C.P. developed this variant and arranged for its distribution from African nations to Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium.

    “China’s Military Declares Biotechnology Warfare as its Fundamental Guiding Principle”
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/chinas-military-declares-biotechnology-warfare-fundamental-guiding-principle/#:~:text=China%E2%80%99s%20Military%20Declares%20Biotechnology%20Warfare%20as%20its%20Fundamental%20Guiding%20Principle

  32. @PA + cat

    In the Greek alphabet, the letter ‘ni’ – ? – signifies for the WHO the latest Covid variant, until now. The next letter is ‘ksi’ – ?, which the wise solons appear determined to ignore, to adopt yet the next letter ‘omikron’ – ? for the Newest Baddest Variant. Does their selection exhibit their alphabetical ignorance? Or are they desperate to avoid any citizen of the world mistaking ‘xi’ – ? – seven letters past omikron – for that slighted ‘ksi’, and possibly igniting the rage of Comrade Xi in Beijing?

    Hmm, apologies for the question marks, those were written as the actual Greek letters, but some software liketh them not.

  33. @GB:

    Sir. Please remove and step back from the Tinfoil Hat. Slowly.

    You don’t need to be Sun Tzu to appreciate that (having more than likely engineered the initial virus and leaving issues of accidental leak or deliberate release or NIH funding out of it)… all the Chinese have to do is sit back and watch… Their own domestic public health countermeasures have worked admirably to date once the Wuhan outbreak was controlled. The rest is just gravy as they watch the terminal incompetence of Western ‘Elites’ do the rest.

    Also: Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi. Trust me… unless you have roots and experience in that place really hard to grasp just what a pathogen factory it is.

    @Griffin:

    Correct. Feigl-Ding was on the Covid Twitter Bandwagon from January 2020. I know this because was hoovering up Twitter feeds from the moment the Wuhan Lockdown news hit HK around midday on Jan 23 2020. And Feigl-Ding was right there pumping out apocalyptic stuff during that first week.

  34. The Conservative Treehouse has a post that speculates it has been released now in order to act as a pressure relief valve for inflation. The world’s leaders need demand to be tamped down, oil use to decrease, and people to be locked down so that prices come down due to lack of demand. A cynical, but surely possible scenario. That way their ruinous policies won’t be blamed.

  35. This variant is claimed to be more dangerous for kids … coincidentally! … they are pushing to vaccinate kids.

  36. Griffin…agreed about Ding-Feigel in the past. But EXAMINE the respective curves compared in the LINK to his graph that I’ve provided.

    THIS is hard and measured evidence. Not speculation.

    Regarding Griffin and “physicsguy,

    That link to Aaron Ginn’s twitter I posted above from the SA doctor seemed to say they are mostly seeing mild cases right now.”

    This is HISTORICALLY the norm: a virus trades off a decline in lethality for increased transmissibility.

    But recall the recent exception: Ebola which was both more lethal and easily transmissible. (Fortunately, an effective vaxx was developed for Ebola a year ago.)

    Dr Campbell indicates that measurements characterizing the thread may emerge within two weeks.

    I have no idea whether that’s correct or not. But he’s much more spot on than any other source about COVID-19. So, that’s not nothing.

  37. junco relates from TCT “The Conservative Treehouse has a post that speculates it has been released now in order to act as a pressure relief valve for inflation.”

    Armchair wise….SURE. BUT IF any of the fact pattern described to us is true, then no way is this “planted threat” conspiracy theory tenable.

    I’m calling this on out as irresponsible and risible spec because too many people in too many distant places would have to in on it, and over days or about as long as two weeks time. It’s wildly unlikely.

  38. TJ,

    They always vastly overrate the R0 when one of these things come along then it gets lowered and lowered and lowered.

    https://twitter.com/KasperKepp/status/1464305178744696840

    The ridiculous conspiracy theory crap from the ‘right’ on this is almost as annoying as the authoritarianism from the left.

    The fact of the matter is the world economy is in a much more fragile state right now than in March 2020 and if anything this would probably cause more inflation by wrecking the supply chain even further.

  39. Insufficiently Sensitive–

    I have no idea why the “solons” [sarc intentional] at WHO skipped over any letter of the Greek alphabet to land on ‘omicron.’ I had two years of Greek in college, so I know the Greek alphabet, but that’s no help in reading the minds of medical bureaucrats.

    As for trying to reproduce Greek letters in standard software, I’ve had the same problem you have. Maybe Neo– whose nom de blog is derived from the Greek word neos after all– might have some answers to the software issue. Myself, I’m inclined to think it’s just one more way the Latin (i.e., Roman) alphabet took over when the Germanic (including English) and the Romance languages made use of the Latin script for their respective vernaculars.

  40. WHO claims they skipped ‘Nu’ to avoid confusion with ‘new’ and ‘Xi’ to avoid associating it with a particular region.

    Make of that what you will but that is their story.

  41. @ Griffin “WHO claims they skipped ‘Nu’ to avoid confusion with ‘new’ and ‘Xi’ to avoid associating it with a particular region.”

    Any explanations for omitting: Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, and Mu?

    Actually, I can see leaving out L and M – might be confused with lambs and cows, which are not found in the Wuhan wet markets IIRC.

  43. Powerline’s Steven Hayward is on it, with a nice table.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/xi-who-must-be-obeyed.php

    I hadn’t been following the succession of COVID variations, which the World Health Organization (WHO?) has been labeling in the sequential order of the Greek alphabet. So the last iteration before yesterday’s news was the “Nu” variant. So next in line should be the “Xi” variant. But no!—We have skipped over the Xi variant for some reason right to the Marvel Superhero “Omicron” variant. (Isn’t “Omnicron” a superhero character in some cinematic universe?)

    I hadn’t been following either: have there been named variants following Delta , which the NYPost indicated there had not been, or what?
    Obviously, they didn’t impinge on the media consciousness if there were.

    UPDATE: (and I haven’t even hit “submit” yet!)
    Wikipedia’s table says “yes” there were variants for all the above letters, including Lambda and Mu, but not Nu. They are called “Former variants of interest.”
    Goes to show you should do the research first and the punditing after.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2

    However, WHO doesn’t list the minor ones (Epsilon-Kappa) on its own website!
    https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/

    And the CDC is not completely consistent with either of the above.
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-info.html

    Really, is it too much to ask that they at least co-ordinate their misinformation a bit better?

  44. Here’s a post on the Strain That Shall Not be Named, because otherwise people are going to make a “Who’s On First” routine out of Nu and New.

    https://londonnewstime.com/highly-mutated-nu-covid-strain-found-in-south-africa-what-you-need-to-know/571203/

    This variant was first discovered in South Africa and has been described by authorities as “the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

    Professor Triode Riuler, director of the Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation in South Africa, explained that it is “very different” from other variants such as the Delta variant.

    He says it has an “abnormal mutation constellation” and “this variant surprised us, it has a big jump to evolution and more mutations than we expected. . “

    Compared to the two mutations in the delta variant, the B.1.1.529 variant has 10.

    Apparently, the article was premature in predicting the name, just because it was next in line.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/who-labels-newly-identified-covid-strain-as-omicron-says-its-a-variant-of-concern.html

    The U.N. health agency recognized the new Covid strain, first referred to as lineage B.1.1.529 and now named omicron, as a variant of concern.
    Experts fear a sharp upswing of Covid cases in South Africa’s Gauteng province — where the heavily mutated strain was first identified — could mean it has greater potential to escape prior immunity than other variants.

    Apparently, the only thing that really matters is the number.

    https://allpoetry.com/The-Aged-Aged-Man

    “The name of the song is called ‘Haddocks’ Eyes.'”

    “Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?”. Alice said, trying to feel interested.

    “No, you don’t understand,” the knight said, looking a little vexed.
    “That’s what the name is called. The name really is ‘The Aged, Aged Man.'”

    “Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the song is called’?” Alice corrected herself.

    “No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The song is called ‘Ways and Means’: but that’s only what it is called, you know!”

    “Well, what is the song, then?” said Alice, who was, by this time completely bewildered.

    “I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really is ‘A-sitting On a Gate’: and the tune’s my own invention.”

    – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

    I used to be able to recite most of Carroll’s poems.
    They are beginning to look “ripped from the headlines” these days.

  46. JimNorCal: “This variant is claimed to be more dangerous for kids … coincidentally! … they are pushing to vaccinate kids.”

    Ha! I noticed the same thing!

  48. THIS one’s going to generate headlines persistently if not fast and furiously.

    For example, before midnight in the Pacific time zone comes this Reuters headline: “61 travellers from South Africa in Netherlands positive for [the new] COVID-19 [variant] – authorities”.

    That is, two KLM flights to School, Amsterdam were found to contain 61 testing positive for the novel variant. They were put into isolation.

    At this point, more reports like this are= inevitable.

  49. Here’s another one from Reuters
    “Novavax developing vaccine that targets new COVID-19 “Omicron” variant detected in Africa: Ready for testing and manufacturing in the next few weeks.”

    Busy busy busy — and Novavax hasn’t deployed it’s first “best in class” COVID-19 vax yet — but has gained approved use authorization under emergency process in two countries already.

    Looks like “Trump Time” again (reference: the title of Peter Navarro’s new book on his time in the WH).

  50. “The FDA needs to approve the Pfizer therapeutic PDQ.”

    No Kate–doctors need to start prescribing the existing drugs that cost pennies to treat this. Uttar Pradesh the USA. Do what the Japanese did.

    Protocols here:

    flccc.net.

    YOU need to DEMAND that they do so–by email, so you have documentation that they did not. Send them the protocols.
    Send them the videos of the Continue Medical Education accredited Florida conference earlier this month.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OhRNGBmBZw

    An email will document that they have the information in their possession–but refuse to take care of you.

    Unless and until “they” are as afraid of being sued by you for NOT treating as they currently are afraid of crossing whomever signs their paycheck by treating–and get that message to whoever they kowtow to— they will continue to be the compliant, dutiful sheeple they have been since March 2020, following the instructions of their paymasters rather than putting the well being of their patients first.

  51. and–GREAT NEWS!!!

    This variant has been around at least since JULY.
    If it was bad, we would have known it long ago.

    https://twitter.com/stacey_rudin/status/1464433990300049415

    Stacey Rudin
    @stacey_rudin
    They’re starting to make mistakes.

    WHO just said that “Omicron” was first reported by South Africa on 11/24/21.

    However, WEF reported this EXACT same “variant”—B.1.1.529, out of South Africa—way back in July.

    Oops.

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/how-scientists-detect-new-covid-19-variants/

  52. ” The variant “may” carry a bigger risk of reinfection. It “may” be more transmissible. It “may” be resistant to the vaccines. ”

    “Name the variant that was not introduced in exactly this way.”

    Success and failure of variants is inevitably very Darwinian. They push out other variants by either being more transmissible or less deadly. Delta was able to push out the variants, for the most part, in this country, over the month of July (~20%->~80%), because it was roughly twice as contagious (R0) as the ancestral strain, and half again as contagious as the other variants in this country. It is now at >99% in this country right now. It essentially outbred its competitors, through higher infectivity. The other way for a variant to push out other variants is to be less deadly. That is because dead carriers don’t pass on a virus, and, instead, die with it. And, the more benign it appears, the less it will be noticed, and thus subject to countermeasures. But with a virus like this one, with a fairly low lethality in the less vulnerable segments of population, improvements here are hard to obtain. That means that for this virus to push out others, it pretty much has to be significantly more contagious than the Delta variant in this country – not an easy thing to accomplish. Making it harder is that maybe half the country has natural immunities, thereby likely limiting the spread to the half without natural immunities.

  53. This is the 2d South African variant discussed in the last year. The previous one was also supposed to be vaccine resistant &c. Worldometers as we speak is not showing any explosion of cases or deaths in either Botswana or South Africa.

  54. Meanwhile, Brazil, which may have had the most laissez-faire strategy of any major country, reports a the following seven-day moving averages of daily events:

    26 November 2021:

    Cases: 9,187
    Deaths: 227

    v.

    26 November 2020:

    Cases: 31,817
    Deaths: 480

  55. Right.. but the emergent hype is not predicated upon absolute case numbers; it’s based on this Omicron variant having very rapidly gone from zero to IIRC 80+% of cases in some parts of these countries. Which might say something about transmissibility given it was competing with Delta.

    Or it might not. Doubtless all kinds of survey-testing protocol artifacts involved.

    Then there are various dire speculations about its super spikey spikeyness or something. Whatever. I find it hard to get very interested in Covid blather at this point. All I care about is stopping flights to and from Sub-Saharan Africa for a watchful waiting period. That’s the sane thing to do. The Old Ways are Best.

  56. Analogous figures for the United States as a whole:

    26 November 2021:

    Cases: 75,085
    Deaths: 817

    26 November 2020:

    Cases: 176,838
    Deaths: 1,839

  57. @Bruce Hayden:

    Pushing out Delta is theoretically a hard act.

    It’s possibly no accident that the two most virulent forms (if in fact Omicron is as virulent as the media is claiming) have originated in India and Africa:

    Both places have insane levels of human genetic diversity (apparently our strength, remember!) living in close proximity to each other. Most people with some understanding of human genetics know at least this much about Sub-Saharan Africa. Not everyone realises that India is extremely diverse too because the various castes/subcastes are in effect siloed different races living side-by-side but not interbreeding. Some castes have more founder effect / in-breeding than others. Some castes even have superb eugenic rules codified in their breeding practices — e.g. the South Indian Brahmins who rule the bits of Silicon Valley the Other People don’t rule.

    Extreme hyper-crowded diversity of potential hosts plus various forms of comprised and/or over-worked on any given day immune systems (India rampant metabolic syndrome / diabetes / water-borne pathogens, Africa HIV, water-borne pathogens, malaria, other things you don’t even want to know about ) are perfect breeding grounds for something new and exciting.

    Also…

    Africa Always Wins.

    I mean in the Entropic sense… not the Wakandan. Obviously.

  58. South Africa’s data reporting is dodgy at best as the below linked chart shows they just added antigen tests and that will make any kind of comparison difficult plus if you look at it they are coming up on another seasonal wave and if Delta had as low prevalence as seems then that makes it easier for another variant. I guess. But who knows let’s just ban all travel . what the hell!! Amirite?

    https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1464699395123949570

  60. @Griffin:

    What’s not to like about banning all travel from Africa on any given day?

    Serious question.

    Let’s keep things in their proper categories here. A globalised interconnected world with cheap air travel is asking for trouble when you have pathogens on the loose.

    Yes, I get all the stuff about toxic elites run wild and doubts about just how much of a deal any of the Covid Variants are.

    But if you have a choice of being tyrannised and locked down at home or shutting people not like you out of your country… then obviously you do the latter. It’s sane. It’s tradition. It’s practically baked into our DNA to do that.

    The problem is thanks to aforementioned toxic western elites you’ll get the keeping Africans out bit done half-assed and the mindless domestic oppression stuff done full-on.

    We mindless slave robot subjects of the Yellow Emperor get the shutting out of Africans or Indians or Whoevers done properly good and hard and the domestic tyranny lock down bit done with a believe-it-or-not pretty damn deft finely-targeted light touch. Nobody crapping themselves out here and promoting further beatings to improve morale.

  61. Zaphod,

    Because it doesn’t work. It appears this variant has been around since about July at least and it is probably spread all over by now at some level.

    I suppose I would be more OK with them requiring a negative test from those places but even that is meaningless.

    My whole point is these things DON’T WORK as we have seen for almost two years now but what we do know is they cause all kinds of secondary problems.

  62. Lee on November 27, 2021 at 8:03 am
    If the discussion at this conference at Hillsdale College on “The Great Reset” is to be believed, then we ought to take information from the World Economic Forum (WEF) with caution, if in fact they are pursuing a program of “world dominance” via hyping Covid and Climate Change: https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/programs/cca-ii-the-great-reset/the-alternative-to-the-great-reset

    The article you cited seems to be benign, but if there really is a WEF agenda under the covers, we ought to be on watch for its impacts and influences. As if we don’t have enough problems from the domestic direction already.

  63. I don’t link Twitter but I borrow from it.
    Jack Posobiec @JackPosobiec
    Omicron is an anagram for Moronic

  64. Donald Trump Jr. @DonaldJTrumpJr
    Nov 26
    As far as I’m concerned the original will always be the Xi variant.

    (So, no reason to name the latest one for him.)

  66. @Griffin:

    But ‘it’ does seem to work well enough.

    Take a look at the graphs.

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china-hong-kong-sar/

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/

    Some spikes until officialdom woke up and got serious about who gets into their jurisdictions through airports.

    Just requires competent enough government. And a population intelligent enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.

    Number of days Hong Kong has been locked down since January 2020: Zero.

    FWIW: Thousands of trucks cross between Shenzhen / Zhuhai (opposite sides of Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong every day bringing in food for domestic consumption and shipping containers to feed what 10 (I forget) 24/7 container terminal berths. That ought to give some kind of hint about PRC having it under control, too.

  67. Oh.. just googled. Hong Kong has 24 container berths spread over several terminals. All fed by road. No rail. Suffice it to say that they don’t operate at lackadaisical Western efficiency levels. Now imagine how many cross border movements of humans are required to keep that lot ticking over.

    The West used to be able to do things competently. Normandy Landings, moon shots, etc. It cannot even manage border quarantine properly in 2021. The point is not to laugh at this or enjoy some Schadenfreude… the real issue is what has gone wrong and what can be done to fix it?

  68. Seen at TWIP comments – the main feature didn’t have many Covid memes:
    “By the time we get to Omega, they may have realized their wildest totalitarian fantasies.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0fd7ca5d3d80a0ef64ebab6354a30573b752209c0aec9f25a35bd9d1706a391e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6902601c5fad4f48d30d73b3ec4168b2bfca937d787649b7f78ee42e8d535af9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92c6e4d4aeb11583e1e8ebe1c9534f1b640d167fedc1901404a2b392e44b9f25.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c915d709f866a4a35c5ef1bea8e141f900ce972e9965500de4e0f3e97b9d706.jpg

  69. @ Zaphod > “the real issue is what has gone wrong and what can be done to fix it?”

    Outlaw union contributions to politicians.

    Constitutional limit on the longevity of any program, department, or agency of the government.

  72. Well it’s all snapped into focus now:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-28/israel-shuts-borders-to-world-omicron-covid-variant/100656876

    “Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also said the country would use counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology in order to contain the spread of the COVID-19 variant.

    He said the travel ban, pending government approval, would last 14 days.”

    Take that, you doubting Anti-Semites!… The Chinese Way is the Way to Go.

    🙂

    Get busy recanting! 😛

  73. Fauci’s out there this morning threatening new lockdowns. If you live in a blue state or even some purplish ones like Ohio may as well get ready for them.

    They are really pushing the threat to children also so I’m sure the teacher’s unions will be closing schools soon.

    We comply to make this end but our compliance means it never will.

  80. Corona viruses cause common colds. Live with that FACT. Stop the stupidity of vaccinating against any of them as if it were polio or smallpox. The COVID death numbers are unreliable. Who gets mostly ill, mostly dies here in the US? Why, the Medicare crowd, the elderly, and Medicare pays more for a hospital admission diagnosis of COVID than pneumonia and many other ails. So it’s in hospitals’ best interest to use COVID as admitting diagnosis. The question remains whether the dead died with COVID or of COVID, since all are tested before being admitted.

    Fauci is a bureaucrat, not a physician except for his MD degree in 1967.

  82. Has anyone got hold of a copy of Dr. Atlas book and given it a critical reading?

    https://news.yahoo.com/dr-scott-atlas-unloads-fauci-200956081.html

    If he’s telling the truth, is anyone going to ask how we ended up with three people (Fauci, Birx, Redfield) in gatekeeper positions who do not seem to have had the conceptual tools or the motivation to make satisfactory decisions? (Birx and Fauci were out of the permanent government but Redfiled was appointed by Trump off the faculty of the University of Maryland at College Park).

  86. The story from the woman in Australia I linked above is so incredibly frightening and it’s why whenever something new comes along like the new Moronic variant it sets me off because it sets up the authoritarians to tighten the controls on the Bio Medical Police State some more.

  89. @ Barry – the problem is that Mercola doesn’t keep his videos up for more than a day (he explained that a while back).
    So here are the titles to help in a later web search.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr: The Real Anthony Fauci
    Francis Boyle: Roadmap for prosecuting Covid crimes

  90. @AesopFan:

    We surely live in the End Times when a Kennedy is on the right side of an argument!

  93. AF, that’s true—they’re up 48 hours, actually—but after that, I believe they’re accessible directly from his site (i.e., they’re listed as actual articles, instead of “Latest” posts).

  94. Pingback:Strange Daze: Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  95. Viruses mutate. More fear mongering to scare folks into getting the vax. That’s it. And please click here for more ad revenue.

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