Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Del_Bosque]

Data on the severity of Omicron won't be known for another fortnight, government scientists have said.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical sdvisor for the UK Health Security Agency, said at least 250 patients would need to be admitted to hospital before there could be a statistical analysis of the disease.

That's likely to be between Christmas and New Year or early January

Mad old world isn't it, if the numbers are to be believed the wave could be well over the peak by then, and the booster roll out.

 

[blueinsa]

Personally the 'branding' of vaccines didn't sit well with me at the time and it still doesn't.

Before this, nobody ever questioned what 'make' their jabs were as kids or when going on holiday to tropical countries etc.

The whole thing is really weird.

Its why you could be forgiven for thinking this is now major business for a few rather than actually just getting the jabs into peoples arms the world over.

AZ have been tossed aside whilst those left make huge money.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Data on the severity of Omicron won't be known for another fortnight, government scientists have said.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical sdvisor for the UK Health Security Agency, said at least 250 patients would need to be admitted to hospital before there could be a statistical analysis of the disease.

That's likely to be between Christmas and New Year or early January

Still can’t work out what the world is up to with this one though and why we won’t listen to South Africa?
Their first case was Nov 9 and the spike started Nov 23. We should have started to see a noticeable increase in deaths by now, and certainly in ICU admissions, but they aren’t happening.
It’s a younger population, granted, but they’ve been badly hit previously with other variants, especially Delta, and there are high levels of HIV and TB, and poor health status amongst those who don’t have access to good healthcare.
Meanwhile, we have massively high levels of natural immunity after 11 million known infections and huge vaccination coverage.

 

[blueinsa]

Data on the severity of Omicron won't be known for another fortnight, government scientists have said.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical sdvisor for the UK Health Security Agency, said at least 250 patients would need to be admitted to hospital before there could be a statistical analysis of the disease.

That's likely to be between Christmas and New Year or early January

Ah fuck thought it was the next day or so?

Best we all lockdown then until we find out.

We could call it a firebreak or something….

 

[Rammy Blue]

Ah fuck thought it was the next day or so?

Best we all lockdown then u til we find out.

We could call it a firebreak or something….

Mañana….

 

[Bluewonder]

You sure mate?

I'm not your mate and yes I am.

 

[BobKowalski]

Personally I'm of the opinion that the company producing the life saving, easily accessibly vaccine for peanuts are generally good guys.

And the governments using hearsay to slag it off and politically point score, while fueling vaccine hesitancy around the globe and therefore causing deaths, should hang their heads in shame.

No AZ in the UK? I thought it was about 90% of the Phase 1 roll out, which was the critical part? Phase 2 and the booster roll out were mainly MRNA granted but without the huge no's AZ we'd be goosed going in to winter.

First time round was AZ, it's the one I had, but we banned AZ for under forties and going forward it's Pfizer. The EU have locked in contracts with Pfizer going forward.

I'm not knocking the vaccine, just the handling of it. AZ made mistakes. You don't piss off a huge regulatory and manufacturing bloc like the EU and expect flowers and a cuddle in return. AZ embarrassed the EU in the early days of the vaccine rollout and the EU is a nasty and vindictive entity that extracted its revenge. It may not be right, it certainly ain't nice, but it isn't a surprise.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Ah fuck thought it was the next day or so?

Best we all lockdown then until we find out.

We could call it a firebreak or something….

The only people mentioning a couple of days are guys in this thread using it as a running joke.

 

[True_Blue69]

Regarding the study about omicron, bronchioles and lung tissue. This is a useful summary.

https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-cov-2-infection

They point out that it's still capable of causing severe illness. It does though make me attach more significance to the reports from SA about milder illness. Form your own opinion.

The reality is, anything can lead to a serious illness. A cut on a finger could lead to sepsis, but chances are it won’t. Hopefully they will establish that the risk with this new variant is lower and we can relax a bit more.

 

[JamesMCFC]

This is a daft question but I will ask anyway.

If a new variant comes along and it's weaker than Omicron, is it safe to presume the virus is dying out? Or could we say get a new weaker variant and after that, a stronger one turns up?

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

The only people mentioning a couple of days are guys in this thread using it as a running joke.

We'll find out in a couple of days when we're going to find out.

Give it a couple of days and we'll know.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

The reality is, anything can lead to a serious illness. A cut on a finger could lead to sepsis, but chances are it won’t. Hopefully they will establish that the risk with this new variant is lower and we can relax a bit more.

It’s unlikely that Omicron has less chance of serious illness than a cut causing sepsis.

Dont think we need to wait a couple of days for that news ;-)

 

[inbetween]

Professionals in SA are actually saying symptoms ARE different and more mild. Apparently it’s more a throat/head type of flu-like virus.

Of course it’s early days but those are the symptoms I have.

Delta seemed far more severe than previous variants and it gave a much higher viral load however in vaccinated people it caused less symptoms and for many none at all. You could argue that today Delta is a less severe variant than in April because we've had no restrictions for the last 6 months but it hasn't become less severe.

The reason again for this is immunity. If Omicron was truly milder then it'd make no differentiation between you being asymptomatic or sending certain people to hospital. Instead though the exact same pattern is being followed where if you're already ill, vulnerable or immunocompromised then this can be a very severe disease and not a mild one.

The only reasons to use boosters at the moment are to prevent 'some' infections but they primarily also prevent severe disease which Omicron can and will cause in some if they're not protected.

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

This is a daft question but I will ask anyway.

If a new variant comes along and it's weaker than Omicron, is it safe to presume the virus is dying out? Or could we say get a new weaker variant and after that, a stronger one turns up?

Viruses don't evolve to become more severe. There's no evolutionary pressure on them to do so.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

We'll find out in a couple of days when we're going to find out.

Give it a couple of days and we'll know.

Maybe, but it’s more likely in a couple of weeks, if that last Bluehammer quote is correct.

 

[ell]

Still can’t work out what the world is up to with this one though and why we won’t listen to South Africa?
Their first case was Nov 9 and the spike started Nov 23. We should have started to see a noticeable increase in deaths by now, and certainly in ICU admissions, but they aren’t happening.
It’s a younger population, granted, but they’ve been badly hit previously with other variants, especially Delta, and there are high levels of HIV and TB, and poor health status amongst those who don’t have access to good healthcare.
Meanwhile, we have massively high levels of natural immunity after 11 million known infections and huge vaccination coverage.

Chris Whitty yesterday praised the South African scientists and medics, then immediately went on to rubbish everything they've said, weird.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Chris Whitty yesterday praised the South African scientists and medics, then immediately went on to rubbish everything they've said, weird.

As you say, very odd.
Why are the rest of the world patronising South African scientists and clinicians?
They’re amongst the best in the world. South Africa has done more genetic sequencing than almost any other country, their treatment is excellent and yet the ‘west’ won’t believe a word they say. I keep being told that science is about ‘learning from the evidence’ and yet we are just ignoring this. Is it because they’re foreign in general or African in particular, I wonder?

 

[Del_Bosque]

Professionals in SA are actually saying symptoms ARE different and more mild. Apparently it’s more a throat/head type of flu-like virus.

Of course it’s early days but those are the symptoms I have.

Delta was different between vacc’d and unvacc’d tho

GF who’d no vac caught it had a horrific cough, temp, no sense of smell or taste

I caught it off her in the house few days later, double jabbed, my symptoms were limited to tiredness, headache and sore neck/back.

 

[Elbow beards]

This is a daft question but I will ask anyway.

If a new variant comes along and it's weaker than Omicron, is it safe to presume the virus is dying out? Or could we say get a new weaker variant and after that, a stronger one turns up?

The way I understand it, if omicron does turn out to be milder, it would be the result of a happy accident that it's mutated that way, because there was no evolutionary pressure for it to do that. So by the same measure, it could accidentally mutate to be more severe again.

 

[blueinsa]

The only people mentioning a couple of days are guys in this thread using it as a running joke.

No it’s been a recurrent theme in the multitude of tweets we have seen.

At least the goalposts have been moved now which I’ve no doubt will help with the plan C or whatever it is they will call it.