RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Just speculatingThanks, Fordster! Totally gree, the pandemic is a global issue. Quite literally.
I had a long talk with a highly decorated immunologist a few days ago. He said it's too early to say how dangereous omicron actually is. It is an escape and fitness variant, to be sure. But the studies in southafrica are not very informative for the European and North American countries, because huge parts of the population in SA is not vaccinated, but recovered. Also they were fighting a different variant. That makes quite a difference.
Studies using data from the UK where omikron has become a wall instead of a wave might be more inforamtive for us. Data are still insuffiecent, but it seems that after 3 shots your protection goes down to 70 % against omikron (as opposed to 95 against delta). So, omilron might infect us, but after 3 shots we can be pretty sure to avoid seeing the ICUs. That's good news, espeically because the clinic studies required for a new vaccines (designes especiall for o) will take about 5 months. (developing the new vaccine takes only 2 weeks).