Coronavirus (2021) thread

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twosips said:
Excellent news.

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So, as I read that twitter thread, this shows that deaths are 3x lower per hospitalisation, not accounting for previous immunity differences?

But it doesn't say anything about hospitalisation rates.

The other recently published data, was hospitalisation 29% lower than previous wave, again not accounting for immunity differences.

So that's a best case of (1/3)x(1-0.29)=24% of the deaths in previous waves due to lower virulence.

That's good, but a best case, and we're gong to easily get 4x the cases we had under delta.

And if you use comparison to alpha, when we had lower immunity, we'd get the same death rate as last Jan.

And regardless of deaths, if that 29% reduction in hospitalisation comes through, it's very bad news, because cases are going to be factors higher.

So for me, it's very hard to know what this means for the UK. I honestly don't know if it's good or bad news. I think good, but because Balloux likes it and is no fool rather than because I understand the implications.

Anyone got a link to the actual study, or other reputable commentary on it?
 
I have had a quiet thought lingering in my mind that Omicron may be a blessing in disguise and that it’s the first sign of the virus weakening itself to survive, as happened in previous pandemics that faded away.

Someone else pointed out yesterday that by mid 1920, Spanish Flu had mutated to a level that was indistinguishable from normal flu.

I am not suggesting, as I’m nowhere near enough qualified to, that this is the case here but maybe it’s a sign of things to come?
 
Murdoch already posted about it earlier.




Seems like there’s still not enough data to be able to hang your hat on one.
 
ayrshire_blue said:
Eric Fiegl Ding might well be correct on very few occasions, but he should still be banished from social media. He's nothing but a shit stirring, scaremongering, disingenuous ****. Bet he's a rag too.

(I have previously taken him at face value as someone to be taken serious, my bad)
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Thanks for the insight. So would you suggest that the earlier good news tweets are perhaps a more reliable indicator?
 
Ballymagash Blue said:
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He's quoting a non-peer reviewed report that is MUCH less definitive about that then he makes it. The report stresses that hospital data is very limited at the moment, that Omicron is unbalanced demographically by infecting many more young people and Londoners, and that severity isn't able to be accurately measured because there hasn't been long enough cases to closed. No evidence means that something cannot be supported by the data as of yet, it doesn't mean it is or isn't happening.

Wait until peer review and release.

His subtweets talk about hospitalisation data in the UK and Denmark but that has nothing to do with severity. Hospitalisation rates and days since PCR test are as much sociological as medical.
 
M18CTID said:
Thanks for the insight. So would you suggest that the earlier good news tweets are perhaps a more reliable indicator?
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No, sorry, point was more on that charlatan himself rather than the tweet in question. Please, he's the most alarmist of alarmist you'll find on social media - everything is a panic, he thrives on retweets and shares and that's all which counts.

As for the content itself, it's a link to the financial times so it's reliable enough however I've just seen this reply to that negative article from Balloux (who is very balanced either way)...again I'd question the use of language

"**just as severe**" "could be" "no evidence" and all this because it appears not to actually have been studied in any detail...

 
roubaixtuesday said:
He's an obnoxious scaremongering prick.

I don't know anything about him, but that twitter account suggests someone garnering attention and making cash from it somewhere down the line.
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What shocked me was his "All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered." comment. There have been preliminary suggestions from people who truly know what they're talking about that Omicron could be a milder variant but with "wait for more data" caveats attached yet it seems he's trashing those who know more than he does.
 
This is the report that Feigl-Ding and the FT were talking about btw because none of the media think linking to primary sources is important any more.


Here it what is actually says.

We find no evidence (for both risk of hospitalisation attendance and symptom status) of Omicron having different severity from Delta, though data on hospitalisations are still very limited. There are several limitations of this analysis. While case numbers are increasing quickly, there are still limits in our ability to examine interactions between the variables considered. The distribution of Omicron differed markedly from Delta across the English population at the time this analysis was conducted, likely due to the population groups in which it was initially seeded, which increases the risks of confounding in analyses. SGTF is an imperfect proxy for Omicron, though SGTF had over 60% specificity for Omicron over the date range analysed in the SGTF analysis (and close to 100% by 10th December). Intensified contact tracing around known Omicron cases may have increased case ascertainment over time, potentially introducing additional biases. Our analysis reinforces the still emerging but increasingly clear picture that Omicron poses an immediate and substantial threat to public health in England and more widely
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Let's just say that I do not believe he has really put the data into its proper context and certainty there by saying "could". And again, I must stress this, these reports are not peer reviewed.
 
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