Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Kinky Gerbil]

My word. 78,610 UK Covid cases reported today. That’s scary.

Guess we will see the vaccines/ booster / infection immunity powers

1. Vaccine works and it’s OK
2. It doesn’t and we are ****ed and we’ve spent trillions on delaying

 

[Hotchilidog]

Guess we will see the vaccines/ booster / infection immunity powers

1. Vaccine works and it’s OK
2. It doesn’t and we are ****ed and we’ve spent trillions on delaying

I can only speak for myself, but basically I have the sniffles and that's it. As an over 50 I am thankful that my symptoms are so mild. FWIW I had to queue an hour at Preston park for my PCR yesterday and that was mainly down to families with young children. I am hopeful that this turns out to be a milder strain as reported elsewhere

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I can only speak for myself, but basically I have the sniffles and that's it. As an over 50 I am thankful that my symptoms are so mild. FWIW I had to queue an hour at Preston park for my PCR yesterday and that was mainly down to families with young children. I am hopeful that this turns out to be a milder strain as reported elsewhere

Hope you feel better soon - The evidence is mounting it’s milder - let’s hope it stays the same.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Hope you feel better soon - The evidence is mounting it’s milder - let’s hope it stays the same.

Thanks!

 

[dazzer6666]

Yes. 7 day death rate down 5%. Not a popular view but I hope the majority of those 78k infections are Omicron.

Yep - certainly doesn't appear any worse than previous strains and increasing evidence that it's milder.......need to keep an eye on admissions for a while yet though. The 'big rise' in case numbers has to be looked at in the context of numbers being tested which are also significantly higher.

 

[nicko31]

My word. 78,610 UK Covid cases reported today. That’s scary.

56% higher than last Wed, not surprised at all can feel it in people that I know

 

[crodonilson]

Independent SAGE now calling for a 10 day circuit breaker lockdown with all indoor venues closed and people forbidden from meeting other people not in their household bubbles indoors. Limited mixing then allowed from 25-28 Dec.

https://www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

 

[LamieRobertson]

Independent SAGE now calling for a 10 day circuit breaker lockdown with all indoor venues closed and people forbidden from meeting other people not in their household bubbles indoors. Limited mixing then allowed from 25-28 Dec.

https://www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

Have you applied for membership yet?

 

[dazzer6666]

Independent SAGE now calling for a 10 day circuit breaker lockdown with all indoor venues closed and people forbidden from meeting other people not in their household bubbles indoors. Limited mixing then allowed from 25-28 Dec.

https://www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

All based on their modelling……….track record there isn’t great

 

[worthingseagull123]

Independent SAGE now calling for a 10 day circuit breaker lockdown with all indoor venues closed and people forbidden from meeting other people not in their household bubbles indoors. Limited mixing then allowed from 25-28 Dec.

https://www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

Many of us wont comply.

It is not possible to stop people going to one anothers houses.

Many of spending Christmas with loved ones up and down the country, we will be travelling before 25/12.

 

[nicko31]

Independent SAGE now calling for a 10 day circuit breaker lockdown with all indoor venues closed and people forbidden from meeting other people not in their household bubbles indoors. Limited mixing then allowed from 25-28 Dec.

https://www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

Calling for return to stage 2 re-opening with closure of indoor hospitality, if they did that financial support would be required or there would be serial business failure. Also a number of Tory MP's would need to be sectioned.

Hopefully we've dodged a bullet with Omnicron, but since its emergence is there any real pick up in the sharing in vaccines with the global south?? This time we "may" dodge the bullet but next time we might be less fortunate

 

[crodonilson]

Have you applied for membership yet?

No because I'm not a leading scientist who has specialist knowledge in these types of things, obviously over the last 18 months everyone has become an expert on this and knows what should be done but maybe we should leave it to the scientists who know what they're doing and support their recommendations?

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

No because I'm not a leading scientist who has specialist knowledge in these types of things, obviously over the last 18 months everyone has become an expert on this and knows what should be done but maybe we should leave it to the scientists who know what they're doing and support their recommendations?

Why is it you only follow and support the scientist who predict doom and gloom and constantly call for lockdowns like the independent sage group. You've never once posted and championed following the recommendations of scientists with a more optimistic outlook.

There is plenty of more positive news coming out of South Africa about this variant at the moment where despite having a poorer over-all health care level and lower levels of vaccinations they are not seeing huge rises in hospitalisations and deaths.

Going too deep with restrictions now risks future compliance if Omicron turns out to be very mild, this could cause serious harm if a new variant crops up that does require another strict lockdown quickly, there is also a huge risk a lot of people will think why should we comply when the government clearly didn't last year. Not to mention the risks to businesses, jobs, peoples mental health etc that any further restrictions could have, in addition to the financial support that's going to be needed during a lockdown.

I'm all for caution and reducing risk, but groups like independent sage don't appear to be happy unless they are predicting armageddon and recommending we all live in personal sterilised dome like Bubble Boy.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

https://twitter.com/WolfmannotJack/status/1471133834662105088?s=20

More good news for the it’s milder camp.

 

[golddene]

France banning all 'non compelling' travel from the U.K. From Saturday, includes all tourism and business travel. Reported on Sky news.

 

[nicko31]

France banning all 'non compelling' travel from the U.K. From Saturday, includes all tourism and business travel. Reported on Sky news.

I'm putting this on a par of the UK putting France on Amber plus last summer, very twatty decision.

They won't stop Omnicron, all this does is makes people's lives a misery

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/16/france-tighten-covid-restrictions-travel-omicron-uk

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I'm putting this on a par of the UK putting France on Amber plus last summer, very twatty decision....

It’s what hysteria by our PM does.

 

[Poojah]

https://twitter.com/WolfmannotJack/status/1471133834662105088?s=20

More good news for the it’s milder camp.

I’m increasingly of the opinion that this is going to be the case. As I posted on the press conference thread yesterday, if you assume a median 20 days from case to death, the case fatality rate in South Africa appears to have dropped from 3.9% to 0.7%, previous spike compared with this one. That’s 5.6x lower.

South Africa has a much higher CFR than the UK due to less comprehensive case recording and lower vaccination rates, so extrapolated to the UK that would take us from 0.4% to 0.07%.

Very early days and small data samples, and no doubt this is a very simplistic way of looking at things. But anecdotally, I think back to Italy at the start of the pandemic and all the cries of “this will be you in three weeks”, which were absolutely bang on, sadly. I’m not seeing those kind of horror stories pouring out of South Africa currently.

This isn’t necessarily to make light of the situation; the more I think about it the more serious I believe it is. If we do indeed find ourselves in a scenario of 1m cases per day (though I’m not sure whether this figure is based on reported cases or estimated cases, I assume the latter) that would in theory translate to 700 deaths per day. However, we do have healthy vaccination rates, and now almost half the population has had three jabs, and so that again has to give us some further advantages over Omicron.

We’ll have a much better idea in about a week, as this is a fast-moving situation. Be cautious, be sensible, but don’t get too down just yet, is my take.

 

[pb21]

I’m increasingly of the opinion that this is going to be the case. As I posted on the press conference thread yesterday, if you assume a median 20 days from case to death, the case fatality rate in South Africa appears to have dropped from 3.9% to 0.7%, previous spike compared with this one. That’s 5.6x lower.

South Africa has a much higher CFR than the UK due to less comprehensive case recording and lower vaccination rates, so extrapolated to the UK that would take us from 0.4% to 0.07%.

Very early days and small data samples, and no doubt this is a very simplistic way of looking at things. But anecdotally, I think back to Italy at the start of the pandemic and all the cries of “this will be you in three weeks”, which were absolutely bang on, sadly. I’m not seeing those kind of horror stories pouring out of South Africa currently.

This isn’t necessarily to make light of the situation; the more I think about it the more serious I believe it is. If we do indeed find ourselves in a scenario of 1m cases per day (though I’m not sure whether this figure is based on reported cases or estimated cases, I assume the latter) that would in theory translate to 700 deaths per day. However, we do have healthy vaccination rates, and now almost half the population has had three jabs, and so that again has to give us some further advantages over Omicron.

We’ll have a much better idea in about a week, as this is a fast-moving situation. Be cautious, be sensible, but don’t get too down just yet, is my take.

I think the issue with Omicron isn’t so much the CFR as the hospitality rate, and the rate at which people are getting it.

It does seem to be milder, particularly the very serious cases, but there is still a very reasonable concern it will cripple the NHS due to the sheer number of people needing some kind of medical intervention, although as you say a worst case scenario of 700 deaths/day is a very serious issue.

 

[LamieRobertson]

No because I'm not a leading scientist who has specialist knowledge in these types of things, obviously over the last 18 months everyone has become an expert on this and knows what should be done but maybe we should leave it to the scientists who know what they're doing and support their recommendations?

I was thinking in more of a PR role