Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Gaylord du Bois]

South Africa says Omicron wave may have peaked

Officials relax restrictions noting lower hospital admissions from the Omicron variant than feared.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

 

[BlueAnorak]

This is largely, perhaps entirely because of reporting over Christmas.

I think (though I'm not sure) that the age effect is much more marked with covid.

You need to be careful with definitions (IFR, CFR, and whether vaccination or prior infection is included).

I doubt there is sufficient evidence yet, given the highly dynamic nature of the outbreak, to make any accurate assessment of fatality rate. We can hope it's very low, given the lack of impact on ventilator use, or fear it's quite high given the SA excess deaths.

There were various claims early in COVID, including from very high profile researchers, that IFR was low. They all proved false.

Yeaterdays UK deaths (355) were mainly delays in Christmas numbers.

 

[BlueAnorak]

I get that you're being facetious, but if 200,000 are officially testing positive each day, is it really beyond the realms of possibility that 1 million are actually getting it? Especially with the Christmas/Boxing Day effect and shortage of testing kits/PCRs

Zoe study reckons 1/2 of those with a cold have it.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The data on IFR is there, and whilst still early, it’s clear enough from SA, that 3 weeks since their absolute peak of infections, there hasn’t been an upsurge in deaths to match. Which has happened every single wave there - ie cases come and then deaths follow - as does in other countries.

Deaths here on a 7 day average, ignoring Christmas Day and Boxing Day data missing, have been steadily declining. They may go slightly up but that’s incredibly to be a huge increase.

The reason why it’s different this time is studies have shown the virus lingers in the throat, not the lungs.

Absolutely, agree. It was the claims vs flu I was asking about, not that it is milder than delta.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Wouldn’t Chris Hopson be a reliable source?
He quoted this week on incidental admissions.

In the words of one hospital chief executive in the South West this morning: “we’ve seen a 30% increase in covid positive inpatient numbers compared to 7 days ago. But largest proportion are incidental finding on admission, so covid-19 is not the reason for admission

Hopson quotes one hospital in the SW, vs the media claim of London. These are not the same thing.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The actual answer of course being AZ were giving the vaccine away at cost, and the other pharmaceutical companies leveraged their enormous lobbying power to nip that shit in the bud.

There may be some truth in that, but it's not the reason in the UK, where the government had huge political capital invested in AZ.

The immediate reason, pure and simple, was small numbers of people falling seriously ill and dying due to a rare blood clotting syndrome triggered by AZ.

The RNA vaccines don't cause this.

It's that simple, no conspiracy required.

Later, it also became clear there's a small efficacy advantage to RNA vaccines too.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Yes you’ve made it very clear you have no time for African real world data and won’t believe it until some good Christian English folk confirm it in 3-4 weeks.

Silly Africans have even done away with test and trace and don’t even want to know if anyone tests positive unless they need hospital care. Silly Africans have seen how mild Omicron is and have decided to stop destroying their economy and have moved into the ‘endemic’ phase. Silly Africans.

Total bullshit.

I've quoted far more SA scientists here than you have.

Disagree with me by all means, but do so honestly.

 

[SWP's back]

I like him. He knows his stuff.

 

[grunge]

Which one does healdplace post on here daily?

….and hmmm, your link just says “with covid on death certificate”, doesn’t mention “main contributing factor”.

Healdplace will be Using the 28 day figure I assume as it’s Fastest data we have. The death certificate figures have lag on them.

I read somewhere on the dashboard ages ago that we use the WHO’s criteria for registering a covid death and that’s what is used.

May have changed to be a bit more blanket now as I’ve not seen it mentioned for a while.

the ONS figures that have a 2 week lag def have that tho.

 

[Tonster]

Hopson quotes one hospital in the SW, vs the media claim of London. These are not the same thing.

He also talks of multiple trust executives. You said it was ‘bollocks’. I’m just pointing out there is clearly some credence of incidental covid admissions and I would have thought he is a credible source with good insights from the trusts.

Talking to trust chief executives this morning, what’s very interesting is how many are talking about number of asymptomatic patients being admitted to hospital for other reasons and then testing positive for covid. Some are describing this as ‘incidental covid’
We should therefore be cautious about over-interpreting current raw covid admission data. As covid community infection rate rises rapidly due to omicron, we will get more cases of this type of incidental covid-19 in hospital. Raw data doesn’t distinguish between two.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

He also talks of multiple trust executives. You said it was ‘bollocks’. I’m just pointing out there is clearly some credence of incidental covid admissions and I would have thought he is a credible source with good insights from the trusts.

Talking to trust chief executives this morning, what’s very interesting is how many are talking about number of asymptomatic patients being admitted to hospital for other reasons and then testing positive for covid. Some are describing this as ‘incidental covid’
We should therefore be cautious about over-interpreting current raw covid admission data. As covid community infection rate rises rapidly due to omicron, we will get more cases of this type of incidental covid-19 in hospital. Raw data doesn’t distinguish between two.

Hopson should have a good anecdotal insight from talking to CEOs. He’s really the head of a lobby group so he doesn’t usually miss a chance that to strengthen the case for more resources for hospitals.

There seems to be a lot of positive news about Omicron that is great. There are still some risks around the sheer numbers of cases (although serious illness isn’t rising sharply) and the potential impact with the elderly / in care homes.

I don’t blame the scientists for being prudent / risk averse. After all 10s of thousands of people died unnecessarily because of a politically motivated obsession with nerd immunity.

FWIW, Lots of trains were cancelled yesterday and more are to be cancelled today. That said, it’s a minor inconvenience in the bigger picture.

 

[Octavian]

Omicron less contagious than Mumps (R0=12.2), Whooping Cough (R0=14.2) & Measles (R0=15).
Omicron R0 is about 11 falling to an Rn of 5 with restrictions .

There’s me falling for a media headline!

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

Which one does healdplace post on here daily?

….and hmmm, your link just says “with covid on death certificate”, doesn’t mention “main contributing factor”.

It says "....deaths of people whose death certificate mentioned COVID-19 as one of the causes". These numbers are higher than the than other numbers (... within 28 days of positive test).

It's not clear to me if covid causes death directly or indirectly such as from pneumonia for example.

 

[blueinsa]

It says "....deaths of people whose death certificate mentioned COVID-19 as one of the causes". These numbers are higher than the than other numbers (... within 28 days of positive test).

It's not clear to me if covid causes death directly or indirectly such as from pneumonia for example.

Im no expert but I’ve seen enough relatives pass and it was nearly always pneumonia that finished them, regardless of the other morbidities they had and I would say it will be the same here with covid.

 

[mrbelfry]

Quick question. Is there any correlation between how contagious you are and the brightness/thickness of the line on an lft test?

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Yeaterdays UK deaths (355) were mainly delays in Christmas numbers.

Not according to the Mirror. They headlined with ”332 deaths in 24 hours as infections reach record high”. More scaremongering crap to try to keep them relevant, sadly.

 

[waspish]

Quick question. Is there any correlation between how contagious you are and the brightness/thickness of the line on an lft test?

"Essentially, if *any* line appears before the end of the interpretation window (check leaflet, often this is 30 minutes), then this is a *positive* test and you must isolate and book a PCR. The picture above is my positive LFT from this morning, and I have confirmed Covid.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Official "with" and "for" data on admissions just updated.

 

[i kne albert davy]

"Essentially, if *any* line appears before the end of the interpretation window (check leaflet, often this is 30 minutes), then this is a *positive* test and you must isolate and book a PCR. The picture above is my positive LFT from this morning, and I have confirmed Covid.

Can't see any picture mate, but hope you don't suffer to badly with it.