So, coronavirus...

[Sandstorm]

I’m still going out for dinner tomorrow night. Wife’s boss is paying and I’m going to the bottom of the French section of Reds in the wine list

[Rinkals]

[Slick]

Yeah Moderna. Same as all the other ones

[Ymx]

that’s remarkable.

Stole SA’s discovery (of the HK originating variant), then locked SA out, then claimed as own.

[Biffer]

My wife’s place has had every single booking for tonight and tomorrow night cancel

In other news, feel totally shite after the booster yesterday

Moderna booster yesterday, sore arm but fine apart from that.

[Ymx]

Well that escalated fast!! Jabbed 3pm Saturday, just a sore arm on Sunday until 9pm when I started shivering and sweating uncontrollably. Went to bed and was ready to die all night. Drenched the sheets in sweat, awful headache. Almost cracked my teeth they were chattering so much!! Sent a sick note text to boss at breakfast time.

Finally passed out asleep and woke up at 2pm this afternoon. Felt much better at last and the arm barely aches any more.

Fuck Moderna boosters and fuck Covid19.

Yeehaa! Sounds like you are a bit of a fanny, but glad you’re feeling better

My wife’s place has had every single booking for tonight and tomorrow night cancel

In other news, feel totally shite after the booster yesterday

I’m not sure you’ll get much sympathy from Sandy on this one.

[Sandstorm]

Well that escalated fast!! Jabbed 3pm Saturday, just a sore arm on Sunday until 9pm when I started shivering and sweating uncontrollably. Went to bed and was ready to die all night. Drenched the sheets in sweat, awful headache. Almost cracked my teeth they were chattering so much!! Sent a sick note text to boss at breakfast time.

Finally passed out asleep and woke up at 2pm this afternoon. Felt much better at last and the arm barely aches any more.

Fuck Moderna boosters and fuck Covid19.

Yeehaa! Sounds like you are a bit of a fanny, but glad you’re feeling better

My wife’s place has had every single booking for tonight and tomorrow night cancel

In other news, feel totally shite after the booster yesterday

I’m not sure you’ll get much sympathy from Sandy on this one.

Nah, I know how shite he feels. It ain’t fun.

[Slick]

Very magnanimous.

But at me!

[Biffer]

Very magnanimous.

But at me!

My arm is barely even sore now.

Lightweights who can't take a shot without a few days in bed, honestly.

[Slick]

Very magnanimous.

But at me!

My arm is barely even sore now.

Lightweights who can't take a shot without a few days in bed, honestly.

I'm sprightly today!

Doesn't it just mean I have an immense and extremely manly immune system?

[Biffer]

Very magnanimous.

But at me!

My arm is barely even sore now.

Lightweights who can't take a shot without a few days in bed, honestly.

I'm sprightly today!

Doesn't it just mean I have an immense and extremely manly immune system?

Think it means your default setting on infection is manflu

[Calculon]

My wife’s place has had every single booking for tonight and tomorrow night cancel

In other news, feel totally shite after the booster yesterday

Moderna?

https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20 ... ss_release

Thanks, that would support the difference in symptoms we are seeing between the two strains.

And the speed of spread.

foshure, let's hope it completely replaces the delta variant

[Margin__Walker]

Do some research kids

[Slick]

email from the school that someone in my sons class has tested positive .... great. No school tomorrow I think.

[Torquemada 1420]

Well..lets hope Omicron is mild in most people because in cases numbers looks like we are going to set some new records:

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

[Margin__Walker]

No

Infection rates matter if they end up being double what was observed during the last winter peak. There will be a follow on impact on hospital admissions etc.

Without vaccinations we would be in huge trouble

[petej]

My wife’s place has had every single booking for tonight and tomorrow night cancel

In other news, feel totally shite after the booster yesterday

Moderna?

Thanks, that would support the difference in symptoms we are seeing between the two strains.

And the speed of spread.

foshure, let's hope it completely replaces the delta variant

That would be good. Hopefully, post this wave we can start to get rid of PCR testing outside of clinical settings, the shitty contact tracing, travel restrictions, quarantine of contacts. Going to be difficult for some of the UK public to shift attitudes on COVID even as the level of risk declines as it has become part of people's tribal identities.

[JM2K6]

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

Covid didn't start with Omicron, and the vaccines are still providing us with a real defence against Omicron. It'd be carnage without them. Vaccines are effective but don't stop transmission of Omicron and aren't 100% effective.

[tc27]

Well..lets hope Omicron is mild in most people because in cases numbers looks like we are going to set some new records:

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

No...without vaccines this would be an absolute catastrophe.

[Uncle fester]

Please send the link!

https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20 ... ss_release

If that is the case, it could be very good news. One of the reasons Covid has been so serious is that it infects both upper and lower respiratory tracts. Other similar viruses like MERS were lower respiratory only.

As as general rule of thumb, lower respiratory only is more dangerous but much slower to spread. Upper respiratory only is very quick to spread but not as serious. Covid had the perfect storm combination of both.

Now if Omicron eases us away from lower respiratory infections, that will eliminate most of the risk. We've effectively used natural selection to force it to become less dangerous.
Still need to be a bit careful that we don't throw caution to the wind and let it mutate back into something more dangerous.

[Enzedder]

88,000 new UK cases today. Holy shit this thing has legs. Thank God it appears to be a more mild variety

[Ymx]

Think I read somewhere it has a 23% less likelihood of people ending up in hospital than delta. Which actually isn’t that much.

But then the likelihood of ending up in ICU is drastically reduced. From the numbers I saw it was 5.7 times less likely for an omicron case to end up in ICU than for a delta case.

[Ymx]

Looking for it I just found this in the fail.

As a crude rate, Omicron is currently leading to a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta.

That’s a “third of”, not a “third fewer.”

Blimey it’s hard to find consistency here

[Uncle fester]

Looking for it I just found this in the fail.

As a crude rate, Omicron is currently leading to a third fewer hospital admissions than Delta did during its entire wave — 38 admissions per 1,000 Omicron cases compared to 101 per 1,000 for Delta.

That’s a “third of”, not a “third fewer.”

Blimey it’s hard to find consistency here

We only discovered the variant a wet week ago so info is going to be sketchy and fluid until we get a handle on it.

[Ymx]

Yeah I agree. But think it’s supposed to be the same study. SA study of 78,000

Another part of the mail article

Omicron is causing milder disease than Delta in patients in the epicentre of the new Covid variant, the first major real-world study in South Africa confirmed today.

Officials who analysed 78,000 Omicron cases in the past month estimated the risk of hospitalisation was a fifth lower than with Delta and 29 per cent lower than the original virus.

[Uncle fester]

Just accept that data is fluid and we can't really be sure of anything until we get more of it.

[fishfoodie]

Median age in UK, 40.6 YOA; Media age in South Africa, 27.6 YOA

That's a big demographic difference, when it comes to Covid

[petej]

The obvious thing to do is post today's graphs from Gauteng by the chap that calculon linked a few days back rather who is more reliable than newspapers. Hospital stay duration is about half of that for delta according doctors in SA (haven't seen any charts so anecdotal).

Median age in UK, 40.6 YOA; Media age in South Africa, 27.6 YOA

That's a big demographic difference, when it comes to Covid

Less people vaccinated and probably a higher proportion immuno compromised. I remain cautiously optimistic.

[Torquemada 1420]

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

Covid didn't start with Omicron, and the vaccines are still providing us with a real defence against Omicron. It'd be carnage without them. Vaccines are effective but don't stop transmission of Omicron and aren't 100% effective.

Death rates have sat 150 per day and fewer since the peak of Jan. 11 months. Nearer 120 now. And those figures are those who died WITH Covid within 28 days of (an assumed accurate) test..... not died because of Covid. We've gone from (rightly) focusing on deaths to infections. Given these vaccines (unlike many traditional ones) do not prevent infection, good luck with panic policies to prevent spread of infection. Because unless the virus dies out or ceases to mutate, then infection is here for good.

[Torquemada 1420]

The obvious thing to do is post today's graphs from Gauteng by the chap that calculon linked a few days back rather who is more reliable than newspapers. Hospital stay duration is about half of that for delta according doctors in SA (haven't seen any charts so anecdotal).

Median age in UK, 40.6 YOA; Media age in South Africa, 27.6 YOA

That's a big demographic difference, when it comes to Covid

Less people vaccinated and probably a higher proportion immuno compromised. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Total covid hospital admissions in GB since April 2020 (20 months) = less than 650,000. Admissions: we have no data for tenure.

Total admissions to the NHS for last 12 months in England alone for clinically obese related treatments........... = in excess of 1 million.

Who is overloading (in every sense) the health system?

[dpedin]

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

Covid didn't start with Omicron, and the vaccines are still providing us with a real defence against Omicron. It'd be carnage without them. Vaccines are effective but don't stop transmission of Omicron and aren't 100% effective.

Death rates have sat 150 per day and fewer since the peak of Jan. 11 months. Nearer 120 now. And those figures are those who died WITH Covid within 28 days of (an assumed accurate) test..... not died because of Covid. We've gone from (rightly) focusing on deaths to infections. Given these vaccines (unlike many traditional ones) do not prevent infection, good luck with panic policies to prevent spread of infection. Because unless the virus dies out or ceases to mutate, then infection is here for good.

We have gone in 12 months from having no vaccine to having a very effective vaccine that slows down transmission and prevents hospitalisation and death for the vast majority who get infected with covid. In another 12 months we will have vaccines that will be even more effective in preventing transmission, hospitalisation and death. The scientists are very confident about this. Our, and our Gov, job is to try and prevent community transmission as much as possible and that means we need a multi layered approach which means vaccinations, masks, good ventilation, distancing, etc. We need a range of preventative measures that we can ramp up or down as required. Thinking we can control community transmission at this stage just via vaccines alone is for the birds. The current Gov need to be shot for this approach.

Whilst the virus is here for good it is both pessimistic and unrealistic to think we just accept 120 - 150+ deaths a day as an acceptable price to pay. When folk say we need to 'learn to live with it' what they really mean is we need to 'learn to die with it, and it won't be me dying because I'm not in a vulnerable group'.We don't have a good track record in eradicating disease, we have only really eradicated polio, but we have a fantastic track record in eliminating community transmission of very many dangerous diseases through a multi layered PH approach - measles, chicken pox, mumps, rubella, rabies, etc. We will do the same with covid but to expect we can do it in 12 months is just silly.

[JM2K6]

We also are desperate to catch up on vaccinations - plenty of people aren't vaccinated, plenty more need their boosters ASAP - so anything that helps bridge that gap in the short term is incredibly useful.

[Blackmac]

Are we assuming that the vaccine program was pointless then? I know that's sounding facetious, but who gives a flying f**k about infection rates if the vaccines are effective?

Covid didn't start with Omicron, and the vaccines are still providing us with a real defence against Omicron. It'd be carnage without them. Vaccines are effective but don't stop transmission of Omicron and aren't 100% effective.

Death rates have sat 150 per day and fewer since the peak of Jan. 11 months. Nearer 120 now. And those figures are those who died WITH Covid within 28 days of (an assumed accurate) test..... not died because of Covid. We've gone from (rightly) focusing on deaths to infections. Given these vaccines (unlike many traditional ones) do not prevent infection, good luck with panic policies to prevent spread of infection. Because unless the virus dies out or ceases to mutate, then infection is here for good.

I think the quoted "hospital admission" figure is another one they need to get a grip of. They are including patients who are admitted to hospital for other reasons and found to have Covid on admission.

[Biffer]

Covid didn't start with Omicron, and the vaccines are still providing us with a real defence against Omicron. It'd be carnage without them. Vaccines are effective but don't stop transmission of Omicron and aren't 100% effective.

Death rates have sat 150 per day and fewer since the peak of Jan. 11 months. Nearer 120 now. And those figures are those who died WITH Covid within 28 days of (an assumed accurate) test..... not died because of Covid. We've gone from (rightly) focusing on deaths to infections. Given these vaccines (unlike many traditional ones) do not prevent infection, good luck with panic policies to prevent spread of infection. Because unless the virus dies out or ceases to mutate, then infection is here for good.

We have gone in 12 months from having no vaccine to having a very effective vaccine that slows down transmission and prevents hospitalisation and death for the vast majority who get infected with covid. In another 12 months we will have vaccines that will be even more effective in preventing transmission, hospitalisation and death. The scientists are very confident about this. Our, and our Gov, job is to try and prevent community transmission as much as possible and that means we need a multi layered approach which means vaccinations, masks, good ventilation, distancing, etc. We need a range of preventative measures that we can ramp up or down as required. Thinking we can control community transmission at this stage just via vaccines alone is for the birds. The current Gov need to be shot for this approach.

Whilst the virus is here for good it is both pessimistic and unrealistic to think we just accept 120 - 150+ deaths a day as an acceptable price to pay. When folk say we need to 'learn to live with it' what they really mean is we need to 'learn to die with it, and it won't be me dying because I'm not in a vulnerable group'.We don't have a good track record in eradicating disease, we have only really eradicated polio, but we have a fantastic track record in eliminating community transmission of very many dangerous diseases through a multi layered PH approach - measles, chicken pox, mumps, rubella, rabies, etc. We will do the same with covid but to expect we can do it in 12 months is just silly.

Yep. That's of the order of 50,000 deaths a year. That's a very bad flu season. So we're being asked to accept a very bad flu season of deaths every single year by idiots.

[dpedin]

The obvious thing to do is post today's graphs from Gauteng by the chap that calculon linked a few days back rather who is more reliable than newspapers. Hospital stay duration is about half of that for delta according doctors in SA (haven't seen any charts so anecdotal).

Median age in UK, 40.6 YOA; Media age in South Africa, 27.6 YOA

That's a big demographic difference, when it comes to Covid

Less people vaccinated and probably a higher proportion immuno compromised. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Total covid hospital admissions in GB since April 2020 (20 months) = less than 650,000. Admissions: we have no data for tenure.

Total admissions to the NHS for last 12 months in England alone for clinically obese related treatments........... = in excess of 1 million.

Who is overloading (in every sense) the health system?

You are right about obesity and impact on NHS but at the moment we don't have a simple vaccine that prevents folk being hospitalised and dying from obesity, we do for covid or for the vast majority that catch it. Each problem is complex and requires its own solution, luckily we have a solution for the vast majority who catch covid ... get a jab! Obesity and related diseases such as diabetes is hugely more complex ... I await your easy to implement solutions.

[JM2K6]

It will be a miracle if it stays at 150 a day.

[JM2K6]

The obvious thing to do is post today's graphs from Gauteng by the chap that calculon linked a few days back rather who is more reliable than newspapers. Hospital stay duration is about half of that for delta according doctors in SA (haven't seen any charts so anecdotal).



Less people vaccinated and probably a higher proportion immuno compromised. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Total covid hospital admissions in GB since April 2020 (20 months) = less than 650,000. Admissions: we have no data for tenure.

Total admissions to the NHS for last 12 months in England alone for clinically obese related treatments........... = in excess of 1 million.

Who is overloading (in every sense) the health system?

You are right about obesity and impact on NHS but at the moment we don't have a simple vaccine that prevents folk being hospitalised and dying from obesity, we do for covid or for the vast majority that catch it. Each problem is complex and requires its own solution, luckily we have a solution for the vast majority who catch covid ... get a jab! Obesity and related diseases such as diabetes is hugely more complex ... I await your easy to implement solutions.

Torq is a preternaturally skinny fucker - no chance of getting a fair hearing on obesity :)

[petej]

The obvious thing to do is post today's graphs from Gauteng by the chap that calculon linked a few days back rather who is more reliable than newspapers. Hospital stay duration is about half of that for delta according doctors in SA (haven't seen any charts so anecdotal).



Less people vaccinated and probably a higher proportion immuno compromised. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Total covid hospital admissions in GB since April 2020 (20 months) = less than 650,000. Admissions: we have no data for tenure.

Total admissions to the NHS for last 12 months in England alone for clinically obese related treatments........... = in excess of 1 million.

Who is overloading (in every sense) the health system?

You are right about obesity and impact on NHS but at the moment we don't have a simple vaccine that prevents folk being hospitalised and dying from obesity, we do for covid or for the vast majority that catch it. Each problem is complex and requires its own solution, luckily we have a solution for the vast majority who catch covid ... get a jab! Obesity and related diseases such as diabetes is hugely more complex ... I await your easy to implement solutions.

Also obese people who catch COVID are far, far more likely to end up in hospital.

[Uncle fester]

Death rates have sat 150 per day and fewer since the peak of Jan. 11 months. Nearer 120 now. And those figures are those who died WITH Covid within 28 days of (an assumed accurate) test..... not died because of Covid. We've gone from (rightly) focusing on deaths to infections. Given these vaccines (unlike many traditional ones) do not prevent infection, good luck with panic policies to prevent spread of infection. Because unless the virus dies out or ceases to mutate, then infection is here for good.

We have gone in 12 months from having no vaccine to having a very effective vaccine that slows down transmission and prevents hospitalisation and death for the vast majority who get infected with covid. In another 12 months we will have vaccines that will be even more effective in preventing transmission, hospitalisation and death. The scientists are very confident about this. Our, and our Gov, job is to try and prevent community transmission as much as possible and that means we need a multi layered approach which means vaccinations, masks, good ventilation, distancing, etc. We need a range of preventative measures that we can ramp up or down as required. Thinking we can control community transmission at this stage just via vaccines alone is for the birds. The current Gov need to be shot for this approach.

Whilst the virus is here for good it is both pessimistic and unrealistic to think we just accept 120 - 150+ deaths a day as an acceptable price to pay. When folk say we need to 'learn to live with it' what they really mean is we need to 'learn to die with it, and it won't be me dying because I'm not in a vulnerable group'.We don't have a good track record in eradicating disease, we have only really eradicated polio, but we have a fantastic track record in eliminating community transmission of very many dangerous diseases through a multi layered PH approach - measles, chicken pox, mumps, rubella, rabies, etc. We will do the same with covid but to expect we can do it in 12 months is just silly.

Yep. That's of the order of 50,000 deaths a year. That's a very bad flu season. So we're being asked to accept a very bad flu season of deaths every single year by idiots.

That's with controls & mitigations in place. Chuck the controls and what do you think will happen!

[Ymx]

Am I reading this right. There are 10,000 deaths per week in the UK. So 1400 deaths per day of which 120 are covid? 8.5% ?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeop ... 20211.xlsx