Possibly the most informative thread on Omicron ever

[AntivaxHunters]

Unsure how to post this so I am going to try my best.


First off, a bit of a formal introduction of who we are. (Copy & pasted from a reply & one of our first posts on here.)

Hello Democratic Underground!
We are AntivaxHunters ( @AntivaxHunters on Twitter ), a group of nearly 50 doctor's, front line healthcare workers (nurses who work in Covid ICU units), epidemiologists, scientific vaccine & virus researchers, and people who's lives have been directly impacted by Covid (in my case, the loss of my mother). Our mission is to fight back against Covid misinformation by any means possible. Covid misinformation kills and we closely align with the beliefs of the group No License For Disinformation @NLFD_org on Twitter.

We come from all political backgrounds; Democrats, Socialists, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, & Independents, who have come together with the sole mission to counter Covid misinformation. Misinformation is literally killing people and it impacts everyone from every political affiliation you can imagine. And sadly, that includes Democrats too who have fallen to the grift of far right antivax doctor's like Dr. Robert Malone & others.

We don't plan on engaging in any posts that aren't Covid related and we seek your help in our fight against Covid misinformation. We joined here in hopes of raising awareness of how bad Covid misinformation on social media, specifically on sites like Twitter, who isn't doing enough to fight against it. We're aware many of use Twitter and we'll be sharing posts of examples of tweets we feel are Covid misinformation that need to be reported & removed off Twitter. And yes, knowing that Democratic voters are overwhelming pro-vaccine & pro-mandate as we all are is a huge reason why we decided to join. We seek your solidarity with us.
----Thanks!


We thought it would be a good idea to share this thread on Omicron & Covid in general with those of you on Democratic Underground. There's many questions about the Omicron variant & Covid. Understandably so considering the signal to noise ratio is absolutely astounding. The amount of misinformation out there is both dangerous & deadly that fringe antivaxers, mostly far right extremists with Liberals and leftists mixed in among their movement, push to the masses on social media sites like Twitter & Facebook.

That said, we hope this helps answer some of the questions you may have on Omicron. Please note, the author is not affiliated with us in any way but the information contained within is incredibly valuable, informative, and educational. It does get a bit in the weeds as far as science goes however it's a very worthy read at basically 70 tweets deep. It also provides the pushback you need with engaging antivaxers.

Using threadreader, the entire unroll is here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478611650760437765.html

Here are a few highlights of the many tweets and there's plenty more too, screencapped so everyone on here can read them.

[Achilleaze]

1. Yay. But they need some editor's

Obviously. But good on them all the same.

[mahina]

6. They sure do.

Doctors. Not doctor’s.

Credibility tank. Well they are by Pardison so I guess we know who is in charge of spelling. I will read the screenshots now

[niyad]

13. And whose, not who's.

[DFW]

34. There is always a taint when an article is written in Republicanese

They should translate it into English first and THEN publish it.

[Hugin]

2. Some good stuff on there.

Nice to see relevant discussion.

[YP_Yooper]

8. Meh

Running through it, looks like doom-porn. First scare you with selective headliner stories that have nothing specific to do with Omicron, offers a ton of tweets as support, and after being happy you're scared (straight from the posts) then tells you what we all know just to send you off to push traffic to other sites. Not much in real research to be called the most informative. If you like simply bashing anti-vacc crazies, may be entertaining, but certainly not a place to go for facts. For example, attacking Dr Malone (a real virologist and immunologist) is intellectually dishonest to say the least. He literally discovered and developed the entire mRNA technology along with significant peers that created the foundations of the vaccines we are now grateful to have. May not like his politics, but he is certainly not a quack as suggested.

[Tomconroy]

11. Dr. Malone is a controversial figure to say the least. I can't figure

out what the agenda of the OP is and frankly, I can't be bothered to figure it out. I'll stick with mainstream sources.

[YP_Yooper]

21. Agreed when he starts to opine about what public health policy should be

[femmedem]

22. The Atlantic is also skeptical of Dr. Malone.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-malone-vaccine-inventor-vaccine-skeptic/619734/

[YP_Yooper]

23. Thank you for the link

It was a good read.
I mentioned the issue is his politics. His personal, obsessive attacks on others including the gov't agencies, larger conspiracies, the fact his company he invested in didn't get the big break others did. The science concerns he mentions can't be simply dismissed. As the article said,"“He’s fucking up his chances for a Nobel Prize.”"

He found money in offering nuanced scientific facts to those who then twist the message. However, he's no "quack". It's just hard now to separate the Nobel science from his political opinions.

[femmedem]

25. Thanks for reading and replying!

And you're clearly more informed than I am because until this morning I'd had no idea who he is.

[lapfog_1]

3. change your user name

anything that has "antivax" in it is likely to be dismissed by most of us in DU.

Second, while it is true that there is no "magical law of evolution" that says viruses will mutate to less severe illness, we did get lucky that a mutation (Omicron) came about that is a) more infectious than previous variants - by a lot and b) seems to be less pathogenic.

The more infectious part means that it is spreading much faster than wild, Alpha, Delta... and displacing those variants in the population.

[leftstreet]

17. +1

[femmedem]

4. Thank you for the work you're doing and sharing information here.

[Tomconroy]

5. I don't know who these people are but I don't think they

Represent mainstream medical views. Ian Ricksecker who seems to be the author of the twitter thread is a software engineer. Something about this is weird.

[YP_Yooper]

9. I ran through the material

and thought the same as I've been reading SARS2 research since my friend passed when it all started in China. I just posted above (#8)

[Scrivener7]

15. I'm weighing your reading vs. the NIH, Scientific American, the Lancet,

and all the other very respectable sources in the link.

Guess which one I'm not impressed by?

[YP_Yooper]

18. Not sure what you mean

I agree with the sources you mention, along with the NEJM, but the studies he links to are pretty selective in their study design, and nearly all have nothing to do with Omicron. It makes good doom-porn (which he admits is the intent about halfway down the site).
I just challenge the claim that the twitter group is the most informative...

[AntivaxHunters]

19. Unsure why you think it's weird

We certainly do represent mainstream medical views as our Twitter will show you.
Ian is correct in what he said in his assessment & it's a great thread filled with good information.

[Tomconroy]

24. As far as I can tell your big issue is Covid has to be eliminated.

Last edited Wed Jan 5, 2022, 05:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Everyone else seems to think it inevitable that it will be endemic.
There is other stuff too.

[AntivaxHunters]

26. Our goal is to fight against Covid misinformation

which is responsible for massive death, the majority of which is spread on social media.
Most of which is pushed by the far right.

[Tomconroy]

27. Why don't you identify yourself and state what your qualifications

are to opine on this subject?

[AntivaxHunters]

28. Because many of us

are female and have been harassed to the extent we've received threats on our lives.
Are you familiar with the term "doxing"? https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-privacy-what-is-doxing.html

[Tomconroy]

29. Then you're just another anonymous person on the internet.

[BumRushDaShow]

31. I think you are misreading this site

DU is not a haven of naive 20-something Tik-Tok purveyors. Most are the parents and grandparents (or equivalent relatives) of that age group with many of us currently working in or retired from the public health sector (including hospitals/healthcare settings, pharmaceuticals, or local/state/federal governmental public health regulatory agencies).

I do understand the need of a coordinated effort to directly confront the crazies but be aware that "lecturing" the choir is not a good way to gain a support system.

[JT45242]

7. Thanks -- a lot of good info with links to REAL peer reviewed journal articles

This is great info -- and scary as well.

I have a 15 YO son in HS who struggled with depression over remote learning all of last year. So, vaxxed and masked he goes to school every day and we have talked with him about the "when" he is liklely to catch this from a classmate (laxly enforced mask mandate in some classes) rather than if.

The thought of all of us getting long covid and these symptoms is really scary. Wife has several pre-existing conditions.

Good to know what real scientists know after a couple of years.

[YP_Yooper]

12. The OP is an example of misinformation (ie misleading about the facts)

Last edited Wed Jan 5, 2022, 02:01 PM - Edit history (1)

For example, I just read the link to the long covid research in Nature magazine. They only looked at 312 out of 3200 they wanted, most had comorbidity, and of the 312, only half of those (189) claimed long covid - 75% plus of those claimed general tiredness and not being generally mentally there. During a lockdown with the very first variant, which as you mentioned, we all felt that way in early 2020. In total, a very narrow research scope from early 2020.

Does long covid happen? of course. To the extent the OP suggests or "all of us" that you're worried about? not at all, and certainly does not reflect Omicron now.

[Scrivener7]

16. Lol.

[FSogol]

10. "And sadly, that includes Democrats too who have fallen to the grift of far right antivax doctor's..

Citation needed.

[OneGrassRoot]

30. Really?

The Qult is full of people who used to consider themselves as both liberal and democrats, mainly woo and “crunchy” types. They lost their minds going down the QAnon rabbit hole.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. In 2 sentences

you just explained something that I was trying to figure out since I have made a conscious effort to AVOID delving into the QAnon nonsense. I.e., how it has apparently evolved to include a "woo" piece (which would be more subtle and insidious than their outright CT).

Those who are virulently anti-corporations (particularly with respect to the big pharmaceutical companies) have been apparently sucked in.

Thank you!

[OneGrassRoot]

33. I should probably be more specific...

because there are plenty of people who consider themselves "woo" (before QAnon I used it as a term of endearment with friends, not a disparagement) and "crunchy" (a fairly new term to me but does describe MANY of the pathologically anti-vaxx, anti-corporate and most certainly anti Big Pharma people) who didn't go down the rabbit hole.

I think a healthy skepticism of most systems is good but there's a segment of people who, and I repeat myself, are pathological about it.

I lost quite a few people I considered dear friends to QAnon which was absolutely shocking to me how someone who considered themselves liberal (and voted that way throughout life) fell for this cult. Even after being warned that their anti-vaxx/anti-mask content they were consuming was really a front for white supremacist, anti-Semitic propaganda (QAnon borrowed heavily from The Elders of Zion), they were convinced they were awake and I was asleep.

So I had to face how many people, including those we considered "on the left" were predisposed to this bullshit because of their own racist, bigoted inclinations. Don't get me wrong, I was well aware that racism and bigotry have always been prevalent in all segments of this country, but I was surprised how fast it came to the surface in people I didn't realize held such views. And for them to glom onto Nazi-level propaganda? Wowzer.

Unlike many, I don't see them as victims. They chose to continue to consume and share hateful, dangerous garbage even after being warned and facts being shared with them. No one forced them. Same with Fox and all right-wing hatefulness.

Sorry to be so verbose but having followed the Alt-Right very closely from the start back in 2008 and the rise of full-on Neo-Nazism again, I naturally saw "Q" forming before it was a thing. I knew it was hella dangerous from the start while most people laughed it off. None of this shit is funny. It has been deadly and will likely get worse. :'(

Anyway, you're welcome.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. Thank you for clarifying

and I agree completely.

It makes sense that this progression might have happened as we have seen a similar thing happen with "Libertarian thought", where depending on what end of the political spectrum may determine whose "government" one might believe is "oppressing" or "deceiving" them, it eventually coalesces into "all government" (and "institutions" ). And of course the encyclopedic trove of information that is "the internet" is ripe for promoting and magnifying this. And the deeper one dives into it, the more it draws them in.

Much of the info cited is actually based on valid research, but that research has been cherry-picked and then re-combined with other citations to purportedly be "associative" in order to spin a yarn that is now out-of-context and most likely false.

[OneGrassRoot]

36. Yes, yes about the horseshoe effect. Absolutely. n/t

[Hortensis]

37. Yes, this is all generally my observation. I've seen this across the

ideological spectrum, with differences in behavior and belief from right to left but great similarity in ability to reject truth and embrace fiction to support increasingly radicalized views.

It may have to do more with mental processing issues, the way the brain works, and personality traits, than where a person is on an ideological spectrum.

The patterns have been very strong over time, though, to the point that I've been watching someone with tendencies to woo and intuitive thinking with some concern for a couple years now. She says she's socialist and is unconcerned that that's extremely different from the socialized public services paid for by capitalist economies that she points to, and she's similarly able to reconcile her many, very diverse friends' extreme range of beliefs (from far right to far left) into a fuzzy acceptance of all. Her generous good nature seems incompatible with the rigid intolerance required for all kinds of extremism, though, and may be a magic shield.

[Scrivener7]

14. The thread does have links from excellent sources. And I have heard even some

fully vaxxed and sensible people say, "It's inevitable. Everyone's going to get it."

This is a really important source. It shows us that this is the wrong attitude. We need to do everything we can to keep people from getting it, then getting it again, then who knows? Again?

[lindysalsagal]

38. Both of my grandmothers went blind from childhood scarlet fever.

We'll never know what else it did to them. This shit's real.