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

[byron78]

41 minutes ago, anonguest said:

Where does it say he was vocal about not getting vaccinated?  Being against, say, a vaccine mandate is not the same thing as being opposed to being vaccinated personally

True.

You don't have to be stupid to work here (but it helps) etc.

[andrewwk]

4 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

Why did you think I might be interested? Rather bemusing. 

again, I don't really care - but your mega-bluster original response suggests you're not the devil-may-care character you paint yourself as. Anyway, I'm out.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Just now, andrewwk said:

again, I don't really care - but your mega-bluster original response suggests you're not the devil-may-care character you paint yourself as. Anyway, I'm out.

Who cares who or what I am... this thread is about Covid... not me. Did you not realise that? 

[markyh]

7 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

"Number of people hospitalized with Omicron in England rises to 104, up from 85 yesterday, with 12 deaths, up from 7 - UKHSA"

Daily deaths 28 days after infection are still dropping like a stone. We are now under 800 a week and back to figures last seen late august before Education resumed and the country was mostly on Holiday. 

I reckon Omicron was with us way before the summer and we didn't know , spreading rapidly, and it overtook Delta as the dominant strain early November when we thought it was just starting. This explains why Deaths just keep falling and falling since early November. 

Omicron is the new bad flu. This will be a nothingburger by Spring. 

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

6 minutes ago, markyh said:

Daily deaths 28 days after infection are still dropping like a stone. We are now under 800 a week and back to figures last seen late august before Education resumed and the country was mostly on Holiday. 

I reckon Omicron was with us way before the summer and we didn't know , spreading rapidly, and it overtook Delta as the dominant strain early November when we thought it was just starting. This explains why Deaths just keep falling and falling since early November. 

Omicron is the new bad flu. This will be a nothingburger by Spring. 

It's too early for Omicron to have made an impact... looking at the timings - but who knows. You might be right... you might not be... give it a couple of weeks and we can revisit this. 

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

15 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

"REINFECTIONS update 7.6% of Omicron cases are reinfections vs 1.5% of others This is a 3 to 4-fold increased risk of reinfection with Omicron."

But of course reinfections aren't counted in the daily infection stats... because... (PS. there is no logical reason). 

Yet another bit of bad news. 

 

Then again, is it good news, because reinfections may be less severe (that's a wild guess with Omicron)... hey, it's complicated. 

[Bob8]

26 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I have no issue with people who choose not take a vaccine, and wouldn’t describe someone as an anti vaxxer for the reason.  I don’t smoke, but I’m not anti tobacco, I just don’t want to.

The problem with true anti vaxxers isn’t what they choose about themselves, it’s that the lies and drivel propaganda they put on the internet that convince other people to turn down medication that it would be in their interests to take.  

Yes. Because we are exposed to those spouting lies and drivel propaganda on here it is easy to forget that most are not like this.

[slawek]

13 minutes ago, markyh said:

Daily deaths 28 days after infection are still dropping like a stone. We are now under 800 a week and back to figures last seen late august before Education resumed and the country was mostly on Holiday. 

I reckon Omicron was with us way before the summer and we didn't know , spreading rapidly, and it overtook Delta as the dominant strain early November when we thought it was just starting. This explains why Deaths just keep falling and falling since early November. 

Omicron is the new bad flu. This will be a nothingburger by Spring. 

Simply rubbish.

A few daily Omicron deaths are a very small fraction of daily deaths atm. 

SGTF% has started rising from a below 0.1% percent level late November. 

[henry the king]

39 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

I repeat. We don't have that data. 

We do have the data. Just like when Omicron popped up they knew it would evade vaccines because of the biology involved. Now they know it will infect the lungs worse. Again due to biology. 

So we have data from SA that it isn't nearly as serious BACKED UP by the crucial part - the biology. 

If it infects lungs worse, it causes less severe disease. And it is much worse infecting the lungs.

So we almost certainly know Omicron is INTRINSICALLY less severe. AND it is less severe due to more immunity than ever around the world.

Things = look amazing. 

This latest study changed everything.

Edited December 19, 2021 by henry the king

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

6 minutes ago, henry the king said:

We do have the data. Just like when Omicron popped up they knew it would evade vaccines because of the biology involved. Now they know it will infect the lungs worse. Again due to biology. 

So we have data from SA that it isn't nearly as serious BACKED UP by the crucial part - the biology. 

If it infects lungs worse, it causes less severe disease. And it is much worse infecting the lungs.

So we almost certainly know Omicron is INTRINSICALLY less severe. AND it is less severe due to more immunity than ever around the world.

Things = look amazing. 

This latest study changed everything.

Not according to this: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/modelling-suggests-rapid-spread-omicron-england/

The only real data we have from the UK. Which studies are you referencing? 

Oddly, the people I know with Covid are only suffering upper resp tract infection (very badly but not in lower lungs), which made me wonder whether this mutation is behaving differently vis-a-vis the lungs. So there may well be something in what you are referencing... mind you, who knows... perhaps it simply takes longer to migrate to lower lung. 

[FallingAwake]

1 hour ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

 

I think the UK Government could be playing a bit of a game to run down GBP and pump the value of foreign assets for their chums. They'll then sell those and let GBP rise again.

The UK government's game looks pretty simple to me, summed up in their slogan: "GET BOOSTED NOW."

Forget "LOSE WEIGHT... GET HEALTHIER... TAKE SOME ESSENTIAL VITAMINS AND MINERALS... WEAR PROPER MASKS" etc etc.

Nope. People's only hope is more of the same stuff in your arm.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

This thread has kept me [nearly] sane as I write about soil bacteria all weekend. Thanks everyone for contributions. A welcome relief for a brain under strain. 

4,000 words a day... citing lots of horrendously tedious bits of research. Not much fun. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by gruffydd

[FallingAwake]

52 minutes ago, byron78 said:

Yes, quite.

I'm ancient and can't see the issue with anivaxxers myself.

Let em die.

 

Precisely. Then the stats will show how great the vaccines were. 👍

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

1 minute ago, FallingAwake said:

The UK government's game looks pretty simple to me, summed up in their slogan: "GET BOOSTED NOW."

Forget "LOSE WEIGHT... GET HEALTHIER... TAKE SOME ESSENTIAL VITAMINS AND MINERALS... WEAR PROPER MASKS" etc etc.

Nope. People's only hope is more of the same stuff in your arm.

It's just about the optics with them, until their arm is pushed (no gov will survive a collapsed NHS). 

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

2 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

This thread has kept me sane as a write about soil bacteria all weekend. Thanks everyone for contributions. A welcome relief for a brain under strain. 

Aerobic or anaerobic?

[Bruce Banner]

Just now, FallingAwake said:

The UK government's game looks pretty simple to me, summed up in their slogan: "GET BOOSTED NOW."

Forget "LOSE WEIGHT... GET HEALTHIER... TAKE SOME ESSENTIAL VITAMINS AND MINERALS... WEAR PROPER MASKS" etc etc.

Nope. People's only hope is more of the same stuff in your arm.

Because they know they'll be in even more trouble if Omicron turns out to benign but protective, so they need to get everyone jabbed so they'll think they've been saved by BJ and his jabs.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

28 minutes ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

Aerobic or anaerobic?

At this stage my brain is such a fug I'd gladly sacrifice it to nectrotizing something or other. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by gruffydd

[slawek]

19 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

Not according to this: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/modelling-suggests-rapid-spread-omicron-england/

The only real data we have from the UK. Which studies are you referencing? 

Oddly, the people I know with Covid are only suffering upper resp tract infection (very badly but not in lower lungs), which made me wonder whether this mutation is behaving differently vis-a-vis the lungs. So there may well be something in what you are referencing... mind you, who knows... perhaps it simply takes longer to migrate to lower lung. 

There are people with Omicron on ventilators in SA and the UK. The question is not if but whether it is less likely and how much if so. 

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

1 minute ago, slawek said:

There are people with Omicron on ventilators in SA and the UK. The question is not if but whether it is less likely and how much if so. 

True and it's impossible to know just yet - in the UK context the signs aren't great - faster spread, etc. - no sign that hospitalizations are lower as a percentage of overall Omicron cases... we'll find out soon enough I guess. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by gruffydd

[slawek]

1 hour ago, gruffydd said:

"Number of people hospitalized with Omicron in England rises to 104, up from 85 yesterday, with 12 deaths, up from 7 - UKHSA"

The number of deaths is surprisingly high.  Three weeks ago there were only a few hundred Omicron infections so assuming current Delta IFR 0.1% I would expect around 1 death but we have over 10 times more. I hope it is just noise in data. 

[Casual-observer]

5 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

It's just about the optics with them, until their arm is pushed (no gov will survive a collapsed NHS). 

You must be joking, Covid adherence will still destroy the thing they're claiming to save

They've binned off thousands of health workers leaving the NHS bottle necked already.

You've now got thousands more NHS workers on notice to leave....how motivated do you think they are? 

You can't get an in person GP appointment and for the life of you can't get an ambulance unless it's deemed critical.

A good number of people already think the NHS is knackered 

 

 

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

1 minute ago, Casual-observer said:

You must be joking, Covid adherence will still destroy the thing they're claiming to save

They've binned off thousands of health workers leaving the NHS bottle necked already.

You've now got thousands more NHS workers on notice to leave....how motivated do you think they are? 

You can't get an in person GP appointment and for the life of you can't get an ambulance unless it's deemed critical.

A good number of people already think the NHS is knackered 

 

 

Yes maybe there's a more complicated game going on... but - say, the wards got stacked and people were dying in large numbers in clear view, because of a lack of access to intensive care. The gov would fall... they know that. That is why their hand may be forced before long. 

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

5 minutes ago, slawek said:

The number of deaths is surprisingly high.  Three weeks ago there were only a few hundred Omicron infections so assuming current Delta IFR 0.1% I would expect around 1 death but we have over 10 times more. I hope it is just noise in data. 

That is alarming. As you said, hopefully just noise, but... 

I am seeing much more severe cases locally - in my immediate geographical circle... than seen before... that said, might be nothing... but oddly seems to be hitting younger people hard. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by gruffydd

[Timm]

3 hours ago, slawek said:

They are well aware that the booster won't make any difference this year

From a SAGE meeting

"The acceleration of the booster vaccination programme will not affect transmission and severe and mild disease in time to mitigate these hospitalisations for the rest of 2021 (high confidence)."

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sage-99-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-16-december-2021/sage-99-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-16-december-2021

I'm not sure that is 100% true. 

There are lots of people that hd their booster in time for their encounters with Omicron.

I am one of them.

1 hour ago, scottbeard said:

I have no issue with people who choose not take a vaccine, and wouldn’t describe someone as an anti vaxxer for the reason.  I don’t smoke, but I’m not anti tobacco, I just don’t want to.

The problem with true anti vaxxers isn’t what they choose about themselves, it’s that the lies and drivel propaganda they put on the internet that convince other people to turn down medication that it would be in their interests to take.  

I used to smoke. Now I vape.

I am very much against tobacco, or at least its peddling.

1 hour ago, gruffydd said:

"REINFECTIONS update 7.6% of Omicron cases are reinfections vs 1.5% of others This is a 3 to 4-fold increased risk of reinfection with Omicron."

But of course reinfections aren't counted in the daily infection stats... because... (PS. there is no logical reason). 

Yet another bit of bad news. 

 

What? 

Are you saying that once you have been infected once, any re-infections won 't show up in the stats?

35 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

(...)

Oddly, the people I know with Covid are only suffering upper resp tract infection (very badly but not in lower lungs), which made me wonder whether this mutation is behaving differently vis-a-vis the lungs. So there may well be something in what you are referencing... mind you, who knows... perhaps it simply takes longer to migrate to lower lung. 

I've wondered about that.

I hope not - could be a doomsday scenario.

No sign of it from SA yet though.

[slawek]

9 minutes ago, gruffydd said:

That is alarming. As you said, hopefully just noise, but... 

I am seeing much more severe cases locally - in my immediate geographical circle... than seen before... that said, might be nothing... but oddly seems to be hitting younger people hard. 

In some parts of London Omicron could peak this weekend. Next week we might have an explosion of cases there when people start getting symptoms.