Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Bozza]

Estimated that at least half of the 120 *fully vaccinated people* who attended a party in a restaurant in Norway have been infected with Omicron.

If this variant doesn't turn out to less severe, things could get pretty horrible pretty quickly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/world/omicron-norway-christmas-party.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/03/...y-superspreader-omicron-event-intl/index.html

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Really is that it?

I don't think it's correct to post scare stories without evidence

Christ.

All I said was there were reports.

You asked me to post a link !!!!!

Next time all you'll get is www.google.co.uk and the contents of the search box ( " Omicron children" ).

 

[Swansman]

Estimated that at least half of the 120 *fully vaccinated people* who attended a party in a restaurant in Norway have been infected with Omicron.

If this variant doesn't turn out to less severe, things could get pretty horrible pretty quickly.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/03/...y-superspreader-omicron-event-intl/index.html

Well.. on the bright side that means there is at least a group of people that can be closely studied now. Will be interesting to hear about how many it ends up being / what happens to them / demographics / when they were vaccinated and so forth.

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

Estimated that at least half of the 120 *fully vaccinated people* who attended a party in a restaurant in Norway have been infected with Omicron.

If this variant doesn't turn out to less severe, things could get pretty horrible pretty quickly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/world/omicron-norway-christmas-party.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/03/...y-superspreader-omicron-event-intl/index.html

In SA where it is now the dominant variant they are seeing very mild symptoms- most commonly just fatigue for 1-2 days apparently [emoji2369]

All sounds very low-key but it seems to have been jumped on by the politicians globally and they all want to be ‘seen to be doing something’ - which is definitely what BJ looks to have been doing for that last week. Plus many countries wanted to push their vaccine / booster drive anyway so this seems to have been ideal fodder for that.

Hopefully it is low-key and ideally less harmful than the other variants, if it is going to take over as the most dominant strain as it has in SA.

 

[vegster]

Estimated that at least half of the 120 *fully vaccinated people* who attended a party in a restaurant in Norway have been infected with Omicron.

If this variant doesn't turn out to less severe, things could get pretty horrible pretty quickly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/world/omicron-norway-christmas-party.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/03/...y-superspreader-omicron-event-intl/index.html

The Grauniad reporting that over half of UK cases with Omicron had been double vaccinated.

Looks like this one is going to rip through the country in the run up to Christmas.


Official government policy still " Carry on with your parties, Nativity plays and gatherings " .... My estimate of U Turn arrival is Thursday 16th of December just before a huge weekend of partying.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The Grauniad reporting that over half of UK cases with Omicron had been double vaccinated.

Looks like this one is going to rip through the country in the run up to Christmas.


Official government policy still " Carry on with your parties, Nativity plays and gatherings " .... My estimate of U Turn arrival is Thursday 16th of December just before a huge weekend of partying.

Meanwhile the WHO say "don't panic".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59526252

"How worried should we be? We need to be prepared and cautious, not panic, because we're in a different situation to a year ago," she said.

WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan meanwhile said the world currently had "highly effective vaccines" against Covid-19, and the focus should be on distributing them more widely. He said there was no evidence to back changing these jabs to tailor them to the new Omicron variant.



Get jabbed / boostered and there's a very good chance of mild or no illness. There's certainly no Doomsday evidence (yet) though restoring mask wearing is eminently sensible IMO.

 

[Swansman]

The Grauniad reporting that over half of UK cases with Omicron had been double vaccinated.

Looks like this one is going to rip through the country in the run up to Christmas.


Official government policy still " Carry on with your parties, Nativity plays and gatherings " .... My estimate of U Turn arrival is Thursday 16th of December just before a huge weekend of partying.

Well it is sensible to not cancel Christmas until there is more information. In two weeks the picture will be a lot clearer and then the potential U-turn might also be sensible.

 

[dazzer6666]

The Grauniad reporting that over half of UK cases with Omicron had been double vaccinated.

Looks like this one is going to rip through the country in the run up to Christmas.


Official government policy still " Carry on with your parties, Nativity plays and gatherings " .... My estimate of U Turn arrival is Thursday 16th of December just before a huge weekend of partying.

How many of those cases are in hospital ? If the symptoms do turn out to be mild for virtually everyone, letting it rip will be a sensible strategy.

 

[vegster]

How many of those cases are in hospital ? If the symptoms do turn out to be mild for virtually everyone, letting it rip will be a sensible strategy.

It may be. However, I'm due to go to have crimbo with Mrs V and her mother, we have all been jabbed 2/3 times but it could be the end of Mrs V senior if we import the virus as she is extremely vulnerable... No easy solutions to this it seems.

 

[Bozza]

In SA where it is now the dominant variant they are seeing very mild symptoms- most commonly just fatigue for 1-2 days apparently [emoji2369]

All sounds very low-key but it seems to have been jumped on by the politicians globally and they all want to be ‘seen to be doing something’ - which is definitely what BJ looks to have been doing for that last week. Plus many countries wanted to push their vaccine / booster drive anyway so this seems to have been ideal fodder for that.

Hopefully it is low-key and ideally less harmful than the other variants, if it is going to take over as the most dominant strain as it has in SA.

Hopefully, yes, we're all crossing our fingers - but it's too early to say right now.

Given the inherent infection -> illness lag, it's still going to take a bit of time before we get a real idea about severity of illness in the real world.

The concern is that Omicron seems to be so transmissible, that severity of illness would have to be considerably milder than Delta for there NOT to be a big impact on healthcare systems as the exponential growth kicks into big numbers.

 

[highflyer]

Lots of speculation based on very little reliable data so far. Anyone that actually knows what they are talking about is being very careful in terms of what they say while waiting for better data.

About the only things I seem to hear consensus on, apart from the fact that it's heavily mutated, is:

1. It is likely to spread faster than previous variants (but not sure how much faster)
2. Vaccines are still likely to provide protection. Probably a bit less. Not clear how much less. Probably only a little bit less, especially with a booster.
3. The loss of protection is likely to be more marked in terms of likelihood of catching it and less marked in terms of getting severe illness
4. It's already ererywhere, but probably not in great numbers yet outside Southern Africa.

That's it as far as I can tell in terms of wide agreement amongst the experts. Anything else that seems to be a consensus?

A pain in the arse in the run up to Christmas, and I hate the uncertainty that has been re-injected back into our lives, but we've been in much worse situations over the last couple of years.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Lots of speculation based on very little reliable data so far. Anyone that actually knows what they are talking about is being very careful in terms of what they say while waiting for better data.

About the only things I seem to hear consensus on, apart from the fact that it's heavily mutated, is:

1. It is likely to spread faster than previous variants (but not sure how much faster)
2. Vaccines are still likely to provide protection. Probably a bit less. Not clear how much less. Probably only a little bit less, especially with a booster.
3. The loss of protection is likely to be more marked in terms of likelihood of catching it and less marked in terms of getting severe illness
4. It's already ererywhere, but probably not in great numbers yet outside Southern Africa.

That's it as far as I can tell in terms of wide agreement amongst the experts. Anything else that seems to be a consensus?

A pain in the arse in the run up to Christmas, and I hate the uncertainty that has been re-injected back into our lives, but we've been in much worse situations over the last couple of years.

Potentially only one I would disagree with is 4 - Just from where the cases are reported I think its quite wide spread and decent numbers.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

It may be. However, I'm due to go to have crimbo with Mrs V and her mother, we have all been jabbed 2/3 times but it could be the end of Mrs V senior if we import the virus as she is extremely vulnerable... No easy solutions to this it seems.

Test, test and test again - and if in doubt don't go - Christmas isn't that important in the great scheme of things!

Good luck...

 

[Billy the Fish]

Estimated that at least half of the 120 *fully vaccinated people* who attended a party in a restaurant in Norway have been infected with Omicron.

If this variant doesn't turn out to less severe, things could get pretty horrible pretty quickly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/world/omicron-norway-christmas-party.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/03/...y-superspreader-omicron-event-intl/index.html

We just have to accept that everyone's going to get it. We can slow it down, we can't stop it, people need to stop panicking about case numbers.

The vaccine will keep you out of hospital. Get vaccinated.

 

[Weststander]

Potentially only one I would disagree with is 4 - Just from where the cases are reported I think its quite wide spread and decent numbers.

This.

Omicron’s probably in most countries, but at this stage likely to be in tiny numbers. A non-politicised scientist this week mentioned as an example taking the case numbers in European numbers and x by 10.

Not translating into hospitalisations for the unvaccinated.

Yet.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

This.

Omicron’s probably in most countries, but at this stage likely to be in tiny numbers. A non-politicised scientist this week mentioned as an example taking the case numbers in European numbers and x by 10.

Not translating into hospitalisations for the unvaccinated.

Yet.

It was only the mention of it being in Hawaii already and in someone without a history of travel that made me think this.

 

[Weststander]

It was only the mention of it being in Hawaii already and in someone without a history of travel that made me think this.

The Scotland cases I think were traced back to a single traveller who’d been in SE England.

 

[Bozza]

Lots of speculation based on very little reliable data so far. Anyone that actually knows what they are talking about is being very careful in terms of what they say while waiting for better data.

About the only things I seem to hear consensus on, apart from the fact that it's heavily mutated, is:

1. It is likely to spread faster than previous variants (but not sure how much faster)
2. Vaccines are still likely to provide protection. Probably a bit less. Not clear how much less. Probably only a little bit less, especially with a booster.
3. The loss of protection is likely to be more marked in terms of likelihood of catching it and less marked in terms of getting severe illness
4. It's already ererywhere, but probably not in great numbers yet outside Southern Africa.

That's it as far as I can tell in terms of wide agreement amongst the experts. Anything else that seems to be a consensus?

A pain in the arse in the run up to Christmas, and I hate the uncertainty that has been re-injected back into our lives, but we've been in much worse situations over the last couple of years.

You correctly say there is very little reliable data and highlight many in the field are guarded on making calls at this time, yet go on to promote purely positive-sided viewpoints.

I'm very much an optimist glass half-full kinda guy, and I approach pretty much all I face with a positive mindset. However, I'm also guarded with regards searching out what I WANT to find, confirmation bias I suppose, and try to be a bit more even-handed. As such, I'm not sure your run-down there is particularly balanced.

However, it doesn't matter what I think, what I read nor what I write on here - what will be will be. And we all want that to be as positive as possible, involving minimal health impacts, few lives lost and us all just being able to get on with living properly. Fingers crossed...

 

[Bozza]

It was only the mention of it being in Hawaii already and in someone without a history of travel that made me think this.

It seems to be commonly believed that it emerged in mid-October so has been slowly growing from there.

We all know, by now, how this kind of exponential growth works - that tiny snowball rolling down a hill takes a fair while before it grows to a significant size and picks up speed. From there the hockey stick part of the exponential growth curve kicks in and big numbers become possible.

We're at 120-130ish confirmed cases in the UK already aren't we, I think. It's likely to be double that, at least, in terms of cases yet to test (I think back to three weeks today when I was gleefully wandering round whilst infected) and tests yet to be processed and analysed.

If (and it's a big if) Omicron has transmissibility anything like it looks like it could be, then we could be north of 50k Omicron cases quite early in the New Year. The case growth might be all but invisible for a while, because it's currently dwarfed by c50k Delta infections a day but, as above, when the hockey stick arrives it would become apparent very quickly.

Anyway, I'm going to get on with enjoying my Saturday!

 

[The Mole]

This.

Omicron’s probably in most countries, but at this stage likely to be in tiny numbers. A non-politicised scientist this week mentioned as an example taking the case numbers in European numbers and x by 10.

Not translating into hospitalisations for the unvaccinated.

Yet.

I don’t think we know how many cases there are in the UK yet. They can only test a small sample for variants. We don’t know where it came from - just that it was discovered in South Africa. Many countries don’t have the genome technology to identify variants. South Africa has now identified two of the five main variants.

What is being seen in South Africa is an increased number of hospitalisations for under 5s