Eric Feigel-Ding tweet about Omicron not being so mild:

[tblue37]

Link to tweet

Text

UK hospitals 🏥 seeing critical staff shortages + caseload. 📌Maybe whoever arrogantly pushed the “#Omicron is mild” / “no need to worry” should be fired. 📌Maybe whoever naively believed the “it’s mild” propaganda should reconsider how they were so dangerously duped.

Shaun Lintern
@ShaunLintern
BREAKING: A very serious situation at hospitals across Lincolnshire tonight as @ULHT_News declares a 'critical incident' over "extreme and unprecedented" staff shortages. It says it is "unable to maintain safe staffing levels" leading to "compromised care" across its sites:

(There's a whole scary thread to read.)

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R!

I love Dr. Ding!

[NQAS]

2. Seems odd to me

that guidance from the CDC these days is just plain weird. Almost casual. Definitely uncoordinated within the organization or with other health organizations or the WH. Do this, don't do that. No. Do the other thing. Don't worry about this. Do worry about this.

Turns out, maybe, that the Omicron variant may be mild - if you're vaccinated. If you're not, it's the fucking Covid virus, and you're gonna get sick and maybe die.

[FBaggins]

3. Doesn't appear to be any support for his post

Staffing shortages at hospitals are not evidence of the relative "mildness" of Omicron (either for or against).

[lame54]

6. Omicron spreads faster...

So, while the % of hospitalizations is lower the actual # of patients remains high due to more people catching it

[FBaggins]

7. The OP doesn't indicate the number of patients or the severity of their illness

Yes, the infection rate is dramatically higher. But the current belief is that the resulting illnesses are much less serious. There's plenty of data to back that up, but any doubt should be cleared up within the next couple of weeks.

However, Feigel-Ding's tweet attempts to call the current belief into question... but not based on any evidence of actual severity of infected patients... but on staffing shortages.

Which makes no sense.

[scipan]

18. I agree. NT

[SheltieLover]

13. Dr. Ding has lots of support. Look at the world-renowned scientists who agree with him

[FBaggins]

17. Not support for this post

There are not lots of "world-renowned scientists" claiming that people have been duped into believing that Omicron is comparatively mild.

There can't be... since all of the data so far has been contrary to that position. At best he can question whether the current conclusions are premature.

[YP_Yooper]

26. Exactly

He's intentionally conflating transmission rates and disease severity to get clicks and TV appearances.
Omicron has shown to be almost 1/10th the rate of hospitalization and death as delta even from the early days in S Africa, and in nearly every country since. As you say, one can argue the 1/10th number as more data comes in from different demographics, but Ding is pushing drama for clicks and traffic with this unsupported claim.

[myccrider]

33. That's my take on that reTweet, too.

His logic is really bad.

[Raftergirl]

19. This.

[crimycarny]

20. Feigel-Ding post seems a bit histrionic as well

I follow this person instead (a virologist). Below is some real data that compares first-time infection of Delta versus first-time infection with Omicron. It is clearly milder than Delta.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[DENVERPOPS]

23. A mega ton of the articles and reports

that barrage us from every angle are in all reality click bait for ratings, or attention getting.......

After watching the WHO, CDC, FDA, Politicians, and mass media for the past two years, I now, more than ever,
am convinced that they all are wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Pharma, and/or controlled by other large Corporate Interests.......

Good luck America. (and the world for that matter)

[Ms. Toad]

41. He isn't always precise in how he speaks

How I read his post is as addressing the disastrous "no need to worry" focus on omicron because it is purportedly. In other words - whether it was mild or not, thecavalier attitude about how dangerous it is was disastrous - BECAUSE extremely high transmission - even if it is mild - mean that health care (both as to COVID and as to other issues) is being compromised.

I don't read his post as saying omicron is not mild - just that it was predictably disastrous policy to treat it as if we don't need to worry about it because it was mild. Even a mild illness which results in fewer per infection hospitalizations x 10-fold (or more) increase in cases produces a quantity of illness we can't care for - especially when we not only have more illness, but fewer healthy health care workers to care for them.

[dchill]

4. Seems to me that the old adage YMMV should be observed.

I've had common colds that laid me out for days.

[janterry]

5. is this data correlated with vaccination status

age? comorbidity? If MORE people are exposed, the relative numbers at hospitals will go up. But that might be a factor related more to the volume of those exposed -

I'd like more background to understand these assertions.

[BannonsLiver]

9. Ding is a clout chasing nut job. The end.

[SheltieLover]

15. He clearly is not.

[beaglelover]

22. I agree. He's not even an infectous disease expert.

[Elessar Zappa]

10. Yeah, he's not a reliable source at all.

[SheltieLover]

16. What merchandise is he selling? Nothing. Ever.

[Takket]

11. It is mild. Certain compared to Delta. There are just so many more cases

[Ms. Toad]

42. That's the point he seems to be making -

albeit not very clearly.

The sheer number of even mild cases is overwhelming our ability to provide medical care for COVID and other conditions

[WHITT]

12. Heard The Same The Other Day

from the head of some hospital group. She said she wasn't seeing any difference between Delta and Omicron unvaccinated patients, nothing 'less severe'.

[YP_Yooper]

34. That's the thing about the OP

what makes people go to the hospital hasn't changed (so they're just as sick regardless of the variant they may have), and frankly the hospital doesn't know it's omicron or not because they don't do the sequencing necessary to tell the difference.

It IS less severe when far more people out there get infected, but fewer show up at the hospital (lower rate of hospitalization).

[WHITT]

35. She Specifically Mentioned

they knew which patients had Delta and which patients had Omicron, which is how she was able to delineate that the patients with Omicron were observably NOT less severe cases.

[YP_Yooper]

38. That's great they can do that. It provides great insight

Generally in the US, even across the world, no more than 2.6 - 4% of the people are genotyped to find out, so there are a lot of assumptions

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/09/health/coronavirus-genomic-sequencing-intl-cmd/index.html

[WHITT]

40. I'm Not Aware Of The Specifics

but from what I understand, there is a much simpler manner to delineate between these two particular variants, short of DNA sequencing.

[Pobeka]

14. King County (Seattle) updated it's numbers. Cases sky high. Hospitalizations down.

Hospitalization data as of Dec 30. But Omicron had started spiking on Dec 20.

Heavy vaccination rate in Seattle. Vaccinations work.

[SunSeeker]

21. My best friend just got covid, because she believed her idiot husband who said it was mild.

They're both in their late 60s and vaccinated but never got boosters. He blamed his Pfizer shots for a flare-up of arthritis in his shoulders, so they put off having boosters. At Christmas I tried to talk some sense into them but he told me if they get Omicron, it will be like a mild cold and then they'll be fine and have great immunity. He has no degree. In anything.

But she believed him.

Then Monday of last week they went and hung out with his unvaccinated daughter who later informed them that she has tested positive. This Sunday my friend started having symptoms (sore throat, congestion) and both she and her husband got PCR tests. Yesterday both of their results came back positive.

My friend yesterday sounded congested when I spoke to her over the phone, but she insisted she was fine, and that her husband was asymptomatic.

Thank God I did not hang out with them last week.

[Johnny2X2X]

27. I just got over my 2nd Covid case

So likely the Omicron variant, it was much worse than the version I had in the Fall of 2020.

I think what the op is pointing out, is that saying Omicron is milder doesn't do a service to people. Sure, the stats might say it kills less people, but it's still a very severe virus and the bulk of the people who get it feel pretty awful.

And the sore throat that came with mine was the worst sore throat I ever had, I didn't even think a sore throat could feel like that. And the congestion was unreal, nothing helped for more than an hour or so, made sleeping hard.

[SunSeeker]

28. Were you boosted?

My friend only got one J&J shot, and never got a booster. I'm worried about her.

[Johnny2X2X]

29. I was

Fully vaxxed and boosted, it was a week of hell and I feel lucky. There's a lot of factors that go into how severe it can be.

And I do think the whole idea Omircon is less severe has led to people making a leap to it's no big deal. It's still a massive deal and if you get it you're likely going to be miserable.

[Ms. Toad]

43. Absolutely agree.

There's a pretty strong attitude - even on DU - that omicron is no big deal and those who aren't vaccinated should just have to live with their choices - as if their choice to spread it only impacts the great unwashed.

My daughter (fully vaxxed and boosted within the last 2 months) just got a positive COVD test. 10 days in, she still feels like crap. The sore throat is one of the things she mentioned as well.

We now think it is likely she got it from me, and that my PCR test was a false negative. (Until her positive test from an illness with strikingly similar symptoms to mine, we assumed I had the flu and she caught the flu from me.) That's a mystery we will probably never solve. I wish now I had gotten a flu swab, but at the time I didn't want to use scarce medical resources when the specific diagnosis would not change how I cared for myself.

But we both woke up with a sore throat - followed immediately with bronchial congestion. I've never had that as a first symptom in either the cold or the flu - and that is exactly where omicron likes to live.

If had COVID, it was very mild (6-hour sore throat, fever for 2 days, nasal congestion for two days, bronchial congestion/cough for 4 days - with a lingering cough for 2 weeks)

My daughter's active syptoms are still continuing - 10 days in, including the worst sore throat she's ever had.

[beaglelover]

24. In the last week many of my family members and work colleauges have gotten COVID.

All have had very mild cases, even a co-worker who is 8 months pregnant. All were fully vaxed and boosted.

[IronLionZion]

25. Some of us live in cities with very high case numbers

but our hospitalization numbers are not as high as even the first wave in early 2020. Sure, lots more people are infected. But we have fewer people in ICU and ventilators now in my city.

Hospital staff shortages here in the US are due to people quitting, finding less stressful jobs, retiring, and some unfortunately died. But it's not because of Omicron's severity.

[jcgoldie]

30. staff shortages also due in large part to...

Health care workers contracting the virus and in quarantine.

[Hav]

31. That was my first thought

and sickness was indeed named in that story as the main reason for the staff shortage.
With so many talking about Omicron being mild while being extremely contagious, people seem to become careless and we have apparently forgotten that we should do everything so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

[IronLionZion]

32. Correct

a more transmissible variant is more likely to infect healthcare workers. But they are likely to be quarantined at home resting and drinking soup if vaccinated, rather than hospitalized struggling to breathe.

[Azathoth]

37. Bingo. Omicron has near total vaccine escape

Even boosters do little to prevent disease, only to mitigate severity.

Half of the entire healthcare industry likely ended up in quarantine within a span of 2-3 weeks.

[Azathoth]

36. We're experiencing a wave 2-4 times higher than last winter

If Omicron were as severe as Delta, we wouldn't be talking about critical staff shortages, we'd be talking about bodies in the street.

So it really depends on your point of view.

[LisaL]

39. It's milder than Delta.

But since it is so infectious, it might end up causing more problems.