- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
If it's so mild, why are there already Omicron cases in hospital?
NWR new zero tolerance covid thread
- Thread starter Tom Cannavan
- Start date
- Location
- UK
Cases “with” Omicron, not necessarily “from” Omicron.
It’s a big distinction that has distorted the data throughout.
- Location
- Oxfordshire
It is certainly grounds for hope that whilst cases have shot up in South Africa, with Omicron having reached 80% of cases by November 20, deaths there have not, so far, risen.
- Location
- UK
From the interview Bryan, she is saying a 5 day illness that hasn’t required any hospitalisations for anybody regardless of vacccination status or comorbities. Now there will be some exceptions of course but if that is the general pattern then it’s very good news.
- Location
- London
I’m definitely in favour of mild variants but to @Dan Baillie ’s point - surely precautions are wise at this stage. And we should remember - we are still at a somewhat stable ~120 deaths per day in the UK. This makes covid over twenty times deadlier than motor vehicles. If Omicron significantly *reduces* the total deaths - well, that would be awesome, but I don’t think we can confidently state that that is going to happen can we?
- Location
- UK
In a funny kind of way we could be costing lives by not allowing Omicron to spread quickly. If it’s much milder than Delta then the quicker it becomes the dominant strain the better. I realise it’s early days but the South Africans have not increased their threat levels and their data is very promising.
- Location
- London
That must have been Gove's 'very challenging information.'
- Location
- London
Bryan,
The data from SA suggests that it replaces it.
I saw a report last week that stated that it was already at 99%. Will try and dig it out.
- Location
- Darkest Norfolk
On a slightly lighter note...
- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
How about hospitalisations?
- Location
- London
COVID-19: Two jabs offer little protection against Omicron - but booster makes vaccine at least 70% effective
The UK has recorded 448 new Omicron cases in the latest 24-hour period - taking the total across the country to 1,265.
Luckily I booked my Sunday jab on Thursday when there were plenty of places, I guess since people saw this on Friday those slots were quickly taken + lots of walk-in.
I think that‘s sensible reaction rather than toilet-roll style panic. I trust that two doses can still protect me somehow from severe illness (how much we don‘t know) and I hope it is true that Omicron gives less severe illness. But nobody wants to get it at all at any time, let alone before Christmas! See how many people in this forum suffer smell and taste loss, and can you imagine how disturbing it will be to be tested positive during Christmas, mild symptom or not.
- Location
- Europe
Might the relative youthfulness of the population be part of this?
- Location
- Dorset, England
Tom Cannavan
Administrator
I'm feeling a bit left out since my booster was Moderna (presumably half dose) and nobody is yet talking about its effectiveness against Omicron. The data above suggests my two AZs, the last almost 7 months ago, are not providing much protection, so I hope Moderna is.
Tom Cannavan
Administrator
But then much lower vax rates. So hard to compare.
- Location
- London
There was a time (well, actually multiple times) I wanted to go back to the old covid thread (now in political forum) to summarise what did certain people vigorously argue all along these two years, or to be fairer, to list what did I say right and wrong, and what some others did. I gave up the idea because, first of all, that would be really time consuming, secondly it can be a little bit ungracious to some forum members, even I personally never had the pleasure to share a drink with them. Plus those certain people probably won't feel that I am fair anyway, they might think I am too much lean towards the "science and medical opinions" side (that's what I heard from a certain party MP said on national TV: he thinks "the government is giving too much ground to science and medical opinions", not sure what does that mean).
Still, it's rather amusing to see some of them say that they are perfectly happy about some gravely wrong "predictions". I guess even I spend my Christmas holiday reviewing what was said, people would still deny.
- Location
- England
But equally a higher prior spread of covid apparently. Regardless, we simply don't have the hard data yet in any reliable form with which to assess how mild/severe omicron is. What we do know for sure is that it is massively more infectious and that the majority of our population has zero vaccine protection. I see no way that any responsible govt couldn't be taking at least the measures the UK has instituted and praying that the booster programme can be delivered quickly enough to forestall the inevitable explosion of cases until we're sure it's just a mild illness.
- Location
- Europe
In light of the data Dan quoted on vax benefit declining to zero maybe that's not as big a factor as we'd like it to be.
- Location
- London
It depends on whether your opinions are based on your interpretations of the facts available at the time, or on beliefs (beliefs by definition being things you hold to be true without any supporting evidence).
- Location
- Deep South of Cambridgeshire
No you're not!
- Location
- Oxfordshire
Could be! Observational data could be explained by any number of confounders. The lack of a rise in deaths there so far certainly isn't conclusive. It's an unreliable sign. But still a more cheerful one than the presence of a rise!
- Location
- UK
With reference to Po’s post my comment was slightly tongue in cheek although I do still believe that we would be in a far better position now without any restrictions being implemented at all. I accept that’s a minority view on here but I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary.
The main problem for me is not that people have been wrong, that’s inevitable, it’s that the government’s advisors’ forecasts have been wildly inaccurate at every stage - not slightly wrong but out by miles. And yet they have continued to base their policy decisions on that advice. July was the only time they seemed to deviate from the scientists’ predictions and the scientists were proved wrong again. Even now they are talking up the potential for a million cases per day, and scaremongering about Omicron when the South African data does not support it. Boris Johnson now talking about the first death “with” Omicron - it’s irresponsible scaremongering. What did the person actually die ‘from’? It’s an attempt to create hysteria and Covid has become a form of neurosis for the UK government and public.
The country has been fed a diet of fear and many people have succumbed.
- Location
- London
About this part, with respect, you can't have evidence to prove (or disprove) a counterfactual, that's the point.
As for predictions, indeed Vallance said early on he thought there might be 20,000 deaths. He was wrong about that one, too. The models that were so wildly wrong were for what would happen IN THE ABSENCE of restrictions. And guess what happens when restrictions were introduced?
It is genuinely fascinating to me the biases on both directions (I freely accept I have them too) that make me listen to Neil Ferguson and think 'entirely responsible serious person acting in the best interests of the country and fully aware of the weaknesses in his method' and others think 'Dr. Doom'...
- Location
- Europe
I think Vallance said something along the lines that 20k deaths would be a relatively good outcome. I didn't take 20k to be his base case and I guess he might not have been surprised to see it nudging 150k now.
- Location
- London
I had 2 x Moderna and also regret the paucity of UK-based data on this particular vaccine. Most HMG info rather unsatisfactorily lumps Pfizer/Moderna together even though they appear to be different in many regards. There is separate guidance offered for each where it has been used more commonly e.g. in the US.
I fully intend to get my booster ASAP but Moderna officially recommends a minimum interval of 6 months after the second dose, which would mean waiting until March 2022 in my case, and thus no doubt incurring Sajid's displeasure.
Genuinely not sure how to play this one and am interested to hear from anyone else who had Moderna. It's all they were offering the U-40s at one point so there must be plenty of ppl having a similar conversation.