Coronavirus (2021) thread

[tonea2003]

Cases of the Omicron variant are now being treated in hospitals.

"I can confirm to you this morning there are cases in hospital with Omicron," cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi has said.

as would be in any normal year with flu, we need to know the detail, are they unvaccinated, do they have other issues along side

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Im watching the reality of Omicron unfold worldwide.

It is seemingly and thankfully, a very mild form of covid with relatively few hospitalisations and so far, no deaths.

Get you vaccinations, get your booster and let’s get on with life.

I'm watching it too.

Virtually no expert opinion agrees with your assessment.

The view is that there is insufficient evidence to judge whether there is a difference in severity. There is currently no compelling evidence either way.

Here, once again, is the UKHSA assessment. Why you think you know better, who knows?

There are insufficient data to assess severity, which is expected in the early period of emergence of a new variant.

Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: variant risk assessments

Risk assessments for SARS-CoV-2 variants.

www.gov.uk

The media reporting it to be likely to be a significant problem is simply the truth.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I'm watching it too.

Virtually no expert opinion agrees with your assessment.

The view is that there is insufficient evidence to judge whether there is a difference in severity. There is currently no compelling evidence either way.

Here, once again, is the UKHSA assessment. Why you think you know better, who knows?

There are insufficient data to assess severity, which is expected in the early period of emergence of a new variant.

Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: variant risk assessments

Risk assessments for SARS-CoV-2 variants.

www.gov.uk

The media reporting it to be likely to be a significant problem is simply the truth.

so do we know the facts from the South African outbreak? It’s been running there for a number of weeks and it is where the ‘less virulent’ message came from.

 

[Gabriel]

The media reporting it to be likely to be a significant problem is simply the truth.

Yet the level of evidence abroad suggests that a possibly significant problem might be more accurate.

 

[Marvin]

The real issue is people in denial over the reality and instead repeating stuff like this they read online. Because they'd like it to be true.

The mild illness argument is coming from some GPs and Drs who make videos and gets picked up and repeated.

They should present the argument another way: no reason to think that omicron is any less virulent than any other previous strain but in populations with high exposure to the virus it will lead to a predominantly mild illness.

That still leaves us with a big problem that's hard to quantify because if you have 250,000 infections a day, and some people who have limited exposure / poor immune response, you are going to see 'some' serious illness.

We'll probably get a better handle on this when we see the extent of hospitalisation in the limited omicron infections we have seen in the UK population i.e. more accurate information going into models.

 

[i kne albert davy]

as would be in any normal year with flu, we need to know the detail, are they unvaccinated, do they have other issues along side

Confusing Covid with Flu is pointless Covid death rate is many times more. If this new variant was to start causing large scale hospitalisations we could be in big trouble.

 

[Marvin]

so do we know the facts from the South African outbreak? It’s been running there for a number of weeks and it is where the ‘less virulent’ message came from.

The less virulent message is very likely wrong. You can have a population experiencing predominantly mild illness from a virulent virus because they have been vaccinated or they have been exposed to previous strains.

People should assess this for themselves and not follow Youtube videos by people who can learn facts and relay them without understanding the science, or the possibilities

 

[Saddleworth2]

The less virulent message is very likely wrong. You can have a population experiencing predominantly mild illness from a virulent virus because they have been vaccinated or they have been exposed to previous strains.

People should assess this for themselves and not follow Youtube videos by people who can learn facts and relay them without understanding the science, or the possibilities

I'm simply asking for the facts from South Africa. How many cases of the new variant, how many hospitalised with it, how many deaths because of it. Analysis of that data is secondary.

 

[hammocity]

I agree mate

Shit virus
Shit govt
Shit heads in the population


Result? A big steaming pile of the stuff.

I’m satisfied the Government have done well with the important factor, getting jabs out there. The rest is political. I don’t give two fucks about the other stuff, just grateful we are as protected as possible.

 

[Marvin]

We are told that omicron differs from delta in that it has 30 mutations in its spike that enable it to better fuse to the host cell and hence it is much better able to infect people (that follows). So why should it be less virulent? Only if mutuations in the other parts of the virus produce an effect. The odds for me are that the mild illness in many more people argument stems from where we are in the epidemic.

Omicron is very bad news because it is able to get past the antibody defence system of people who have had two jabs. Likely boosters will generate an antibody response. Most other people will get infected, get ill and have a mild infection because they have some T cell response which will limit the scale of infection.

That's likely what will happen imo and the problem that we face is that we are going to see widespread infection and the virus will in a relatively short time find all the weaknesses. The response by us all now should be get a dose of vaccine if you are eligible.