Covid - is there trouble ahead? New mutation and travel bans.

[Brave New World]

8 minutes ago, henry the king said:

What we know:

• Omicron much less likely to put people in Hospital in Demark than other variants over the last 4 weeks. The gap is increasing week to week currently.
• In SA, people much less likely to go to hospital with Omicron, but the main effect is they are all leaving hospital way faster
• We have a biological reason for this - Omicron is much much worse at infecting the lungs, which is the main cause of severe disease. This is the key finding that ties together all the data.
• We have more immunity than ever. 50% of adults boosted. Maybe 50% who have had vaccine AND virus, which we know gives very good immunity against Omicron.
• SA has had Omicron going on for probably 5-6 weeks now and without restrictions their hospital system - which collapsed in previous waves - has been totally fine. Something is HUGELY different this time.
• The peak has potentially been reached in SA's epicentre and may even be getting there for London. So the peak is short and sharp, and then it goes down. Because it is so transmissible and so mild. 

And also in SA, a faid number of those in hospital were due to other reasons and not 'specifically admitted for'.

 

[scottbeard]

1 minute ago, slawek said:

Would you kindly send me a link to a research? I am not saying this is not true but I would want firm evidence. 

I’m sorry but i I didn’t see the underlying research - just the media article.

just Google “how long does Covid booster take to work”!

[Brave New World]

2 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

Two young women I know (one 27 and the other 31) caught Covid in 2020 and weren’t that ill but had long Covid symptoms that affected their chests for months afterwards.

These are people I know and talked to about it, not rumours.

I am neither fat, old nor do I have comorbidities 😉

Thankfully Omicron impacts the upper respiratory system. Spreads 70% quicker but still does not get into the depths of the longs where it becomes a pneumonia oriented issue.

 

I barely watch TV but has this not been talked about or in the newspapers? It should be as is a key aspect. An important, positive one. Along with the realities of lower hospitalisation rates.

 

 

[henry the king]

2 minutes ago, Brave New World said:

And also in SA, a faid number of those in hospital were due to other reasons and not 'specifically admitted for'.

 

True.

And they stayed in for 2 days or something instead of 8. 

All the data available points to Omicron being much more mild. And we have the biological process explaining the observations now. It infects the lungs MUCH worse. 

It is rare to get the data on the ground (SA and now Denmark) AND the biology to show why it is much more mild. We have both.

[winkie]

12 minutes ago, GregBowman said:

Not your usual fact based comment.

You can’t possibly know your resistance to covid outside keeping fit in general 

I know two fit youngsters who were positive last week. The good news is in both cases mild so fits the narrative of a weaker strain 

The evidence is that healthy, younger, fitter, people who eat and sleep well, will have milder symptoms and bodies will more easily fight off viruses........being around others, working around others, travelling on public transport will see are picking up all kinds of germs, have been exposed to different pathogens........some people are regularly sickly, some can work for years without having one day off sick.

For example when visiting foreign lands and eat foreign food that might not be totally hygienic, we might get ill but those who live there are immune they are exposed to the same bugs every day.......

[henry the king]

4 minutes ago, slawek said:

Would you kindly send me a link to a research? I am not saying this is not true but I would want firm evidence. 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext

This was the large booster study in the UK.

They work after 7 days at most. Probably quicker. 

[The Moderators]

7 hours ago, Timm said:

Hi Mods.

There are some anecdotal Covid posts on this thread which I (and others) have replied to.

Do you think there is room for an anecdotal (Covid) thread?

 

(Please don't merge the two Covid threads - they seem to appeal to different people.)

Feel free to start one in the anecdotal forum.

[slawek]

53 minutes ago, henry the king said:

Demark data showing Omicron hospitalisations down from 1.5% to 0.6% with Omicron.

This is the same data that a few weeks ago was being paraded around to show Omicron was as dangerous as Delta. Well, more data has since come out, and it now is looking good. 

The evidence is now very very very strong. 

https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1472691431336726535/photo/1

And this isn't due to immunity because its all in the last period. And the lines are diverging more as time goes on suggesting this could even under-estimate how much more mild Omicron is.

This is also only hospitalisations. We know from SA that people stay in hospital way shorter with Omicron. 

These are raw data, not adjusted e.g. for a lag between confirming a case and person ending up in hospital or age. 

By assuming 5 days lag you get a different picture

non-Omicron 1.8%

Omicron 1.6%

Adjusting for age will increase Omicron rate relatively to non-Omicron one further since Omicron is spreading among younger generations atm.

BTW. It looks like they don't capture all Omicron, some of them are included in other variants. Other variants are rising at similar rate like Omicron cases, which is unseal. 

[Brave New World]

7 minutes ago, winkie said:

The evidence is that healthy, younger, fitter, people who eat and sleep well, will have milder symptoms and bodies will more easily fight off viruses........being around others, working around others, travelling on public transport will see are picking up all kinds of germs, have been exposed to different pathogens........some people are regularly sickly, some can work for years without having one day off sick.

For example when visiting foreign lands and eat foreign food that might not be totally hygienic, we might get ill but those who live there are immune they are exposed to the same bugs every day.......

 

Saw this when we relocated in the UK, with kids at school and nursery. Had a year or so of getting stuff, one very nasty bout of flu in 2019. (should really join the ranks of I had Covid before Covid was famous, as was that bad)

 

Do Wim Hof, cold showers and breathing exercises. Haven't had a cold or flu in 12 months. 

[clarkey]

6 minutes ago, winkie said:

The evidence is that healthy, younger, fitter, people who eat and sleep well, will have milder symptoms and bodies will more easily fight off viruses........being around others, working around others, travelling on public transport will see are picking up all kinds of germs, have been exposed to different pathogens........some people are regularly sickly, some can work for years without having one day off sick.

For example when visiting foreign lands and eat foreign food that might not be totally hygienic, we might get ill but those who live there are immune they are exposed to the same bugs every day.......

Which after another unspecified time period trying to hold back the tide and spending a few more 100 billion, is the conclusion that TPTB will come to. (older people get sick and need healthcare support and younger people will have a cold) 

[henry the king]

2 minutes ago, slawek said:

These are raw data, not adjusted e.g. for a lag between confirming a case and person ending up in hospital or age. 

By assuming 5 days lag you get a different picture

non-Omicron 1.8%

Omicron 1.6%

Adjusting for age will increase Omicron rate relatively to non-Omicron one further since Omicron is spreading among younger generations atm.

BTW. It looks like they don't capture all Omicron, some of them are included in other variants. Other variants are rising at similar rate like Omicron cases, which is unseal. 

And the same raw data showed Omicron was as dangerous only a week ago. So the direction of travel suggests otherwise. A week ago you would have used the same arguments and predicted more data = Omicron would be more deadly. But it didn't happen did it. 

Anyway all this data stuff is hard to untangle. But we have clear biology on why Omicron is much more mild. Nobody can argue with that. SO it lends credence to all the anecdotes in SA and the fact their hospitals haven't been overwhelmed. 

 

[slawek]

13 minutes ago, henry the king said:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext

This was the large booster study in the UK.

They work after 7 days at most. Probably quicker. 

I can't anything confirming your claims in this paper. Have you read it?

[slawek]

5 minutes ago, henry the king said:

And the same raw data showed Omicron was as dangerous only a week ago. So the direction of travel suggests otherwise. A week ago you would have used the same arguments and predicted more data = Omicron would be more deadly. But it didn't happen did it. 

Anyway all this data stuff is hard to untangle. But we have clear biology on why Omicron is much more mild. Nobody can argue with that. SO it lends credence to all the anecdotes in SA and the fact their hospitals haven't been overwhelmed. 

 

What was claimed in the past?

There is no strong evidence is milder yet. If you have one please send me. 

[winkie]

Just now, henry the king said:

And the same raw data showed Omicron was as dangerous only a week ago. So the direction of travel suggests otherwise. A week ago you would have used the same arguments and predicted more data = Omicron would be more deadly. But it didn't happen did it. 

Anyway all this data stuff is hard to untangle. But we have clear biology on why Omicron is much more mild. Nobody can argue with that. SO it lends credence to all the anecdotes in SA and the fact their hospitals haven't been overwhelmed. 

 

We have to be conscious of who we mix with, such as testing ourselves before visiting more vulnerable, immune compromised and elderly people.....older people should also take responsibility by looking after their own heath and protecting themselves from others who might be carriers of various viruses and germs that might make them sick.......everybody has a part to play.....it is not a blame game.

[Brave New World]

9 minutes ago, slawek said:

What was claimed in the past?

There is no strong evidence is milder yet. If you have one please send me. 

There clearly is both the data (SA, Gauteng, Denmark and let's face it the last few days of hospitalisation rates) and the scientific study (Hong Kong university).

Take your head out of the media echo chamber of fear.

[onlooker]

27 minutes ago, henry the king said:

True.

And they stayed in for 2 days or something instead of 8. 

All the data available points to Omicron being much more mild. And we have the biological process explaining the observations now. It infects the lungs MUCH worse. 

It is rare to get the data on the ground (SA and now Denmark) AND the biology to show why it is much more mild. We have both.

I'm finding this a bit garbled. Reports in the press of preliminary scientific investigation say that Omicron tends to latch onto cells in the upper respiratory tract, and does not seem to get in to, or seriously infect, the lungs. This is the reason put forward for why Omicron is apparently causing milder disease.

[MonsieurCopperCrutch]

6 hours ago, Orb said:

My best mate's wife is Chinese, and she's on Skype to her parents every other day. We discussed China and Covid, and I made some joke about everybody being welded shut into their homes. Though the truth isn't quite that brutal, it's quite staggering how it's being handled. 

According to her, the authorities are mega aggressive at isolating individual cases. In her parents' town, one person tested positive in an office block with hundreds of people working there. The whole block was locked down. Nobody was allowed to enter or leave. A team of medics arrived in hazmat suits and carted the poor sod away, apparently to an isolated hospital room until they recover. 

Compare that with the UK, and it's easy to see how China appear to have a grip on it. When Omicron arrives it'll be interesting to see if they lose their grip. 

Yes it’s a strategy called zero covid. 

[Riedquat]

53 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

Two young women I know (one 27 and the other 31) caught Covid in 2020 and weren’t that ill but had long Covid symptoms that affected their chests for months afterwards.

These are people I know and talked to about it, not rumours.

I am neither fat, old nor do I have comorbidities 😉

It can vary. I think I got it last year, felt a little under the weather for a few days but nothing serious, worst bit was a headache paracetomal dealt with well enough (don't know for sure if it was Covid though, they weren't testing at the time unless you ticked off every symptom in the list). But a couple of young and healthy people I work with were knocked out for quite some time at the start of this year. The only people I know personally (and not that well) who have died from it though have been ill and elderly.

[GregBowman]

45 minutes ago, winkie said:

The evidence is that healthy, younger, fitter, people who eat and sleep well, will have milder symptoms and bodies will more easily fight off viruses........being around others, working around others, travelling on public transport will see are picking up all kinds of germs, have been exposed to different pathogens........some people are regularly sickly, some can work for years without having one day off sick.

For example when visiting foreign lands and eat foreign food that might not be totally hygienic, we might get ill but those who live there are immune they are exposed to the same bugs every day.......

I am of the same type tried my hardest to get ill last trip to Hyderabad . Street food, back street restaurants, bar hopping not a blip and I am 60, strong as an ox resting heart beat 50

But that is still no indication of my likely reaction to a virus which is alien to my environment 

Like it or not, beyond keeping fit, it’s Russian roulette 

 

 

 

 

[Riedquat]

51 minutes ago, henry the king said:

True.

And they stayed in for 2 days or something instead of 8. 

All the data available points to Omicron being much more mild. And we have the biological process explaining the observations now. It infects the lungs MUCH worse. 

It is rare to get the data on the ground (SA and now Denmark) AND the biology to show why it is much more mild. We have both.

I'd have thought infecting the lungs worse would make it more dangerous, not less.

[Riedquat]

33 minutes ago, slawek said:

What was claimed in the past?

There is no strong evidence is milder yet. If you have one please send me. 

What evidence there is though points towards milder being more likely than the same or worse. I'm wondering why you're so keen to accept anything that suggests the latter but dig in your heels at the former? Different standards of proof appear to be getting applied.

[zugzwang]

1 minute ago, Riedquat said:

I'd have thought infecting the lungs worse would make it more dangerous, not less.

Upper respiratory tract infection is generally less severe than lower respiratory tract infection i.e. the original SARS.

[henry the king]

35 minutes ago, slawek said:

I can't anything confirming your claims in this paper. Have you read it?

Ahh, you are one of those guys. I get it now.

I present with with exactly what you ask, evidence it works in 7 days, and you claim it doesn't say what it says.

What is confusing you about the study?

[henry the king]

4 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

I'd have thought infecting the lungs worse would make it more dangerous, not less.

It doesn't infect the lungs. I meant to say much less not much worse.

Edited December 20, 2021 by henry the king

[winkie]

1 minute ago, GregBowman said:

I am of the same type tried my hardest to get ill last trip to Hyderabad . Street food, back street restaurants, bar hopping not a blip and I am 60, strong as an ox resting heart beat 50

But that is still no indication of my likely reaction to a virus which is alien to my environment 

Like it or not, beyond keeping fit, it’s Russian roulette 

 

 

 

 

Living on this earth is a gamble.......driving a powerful car on a wet and foggy road......around a single track bendy mountain road with the wrong kind of tyers and poor barriers........ everything in life is a risk, all about weighing up the risks laid out in front of us....if a passenger, your life is in another's hands........do you trust them enough?