So, coronavirus...

[Ymx]

Yeah, I was first asked if I minded if they asked.

The reason for the White British / White Scottish thing is to prevent arguments. You’d get people insisting they weren’t that if you only used one of them.

A stealth check by Sturgeon to test the waters on a referendum?

[Biffer]

Yeah, I was first asked if I minded if they asked.

The reason for the White British / White Scottish thing is to prevent arguments. You’d get people insisting they weren’t that if you only used one of them.

A stealth check by Sturgeon to test the waters on a referendum?

Nah, genuinely if you only gave people one option or the other you’d end up with the vaccination staff having folk shouting at them, from whichever side depending on what option you didn’t have.

[Slick]

Yeah, I was first asked if I minded if they asked.

The reason for the White British / White Scottish thing is to prevent arguments. You’d get people insisting they weren’t that if you only used one of them.

A stealth check by Sturgeon to test the waters on a referendum?

Nah, genuinely if you only gave people one option or the other you’d end up with the vaccination staff having folk shouting at them, from whichever side depending on what option you didn’t have.

I was asked and agree with Biffer, it’s just to preempt the nut jobs

[Ymx]

I never realised until just now that London is terrible in terms of vaccine uptake. Over a third not at all vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Type in area names.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 76746.html

[Enzedder]

So, infamous anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr has a party - and asks that attendees be vaccinated and tested

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 78073.html

Hypocrites-R-Us president right there

[petej]

Some positive work from the Gupta Lab Cambridge @GuptaR_lab that omicron is worse at inducing cell to cell fusion than delta and worse spike entry efficiency into lung organoids.
https://t.co/EzbfHMStTt

[Biffer]

I never realised until just now that London is terrible in terms of vaccine uptake. Over a third not at all vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Type in area names.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 76746.html

That's a third of eligible people as well. Overall it's over 40% of people in London who've not even had one vaccination.

[Sandstorm]

I never realised until just now that London is terrible in terms of vaccine uptake. Over a third not at all vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Type in area names.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 76746.html

That's a third of eligible people as well. Overall it's over 40% of people in London who've not even had one vaccination.

*dons fire-proof suit*

If Boris was mayor this wouldn’t happen!!

[Calculon]

Some positive work from the Gupta Lab Cambridge @GuptaR_lab that omicron is worse at inducing cell to cell fusion than delta and worse spike entry efficiency into lung organoids.
https://t.co/EzbfHMStTt

Ties into data from Gauteng hospitals where far fewer covid patients required oxygen. The Omicron wave is proving to be a damp squib as far as Gauteng is concerned, excess deaths has hardly moved.




With millions of Gautengteners heading to the coastal provinces for holiday/visiting relatives we should soon see infections shoot up in KZN, Western and Eastern Cape. Will be interesting to see how it reflects on hospitalisations and deaths there.

[Ymx]

I never realised until just now that London is terrible in terms of vaccine uptake. Over a third not at all vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Type in area names.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 76746.html

That's a third of eligible people as well. Overall it's over 40% of people in London who've not even had one vaccination.

*dons fire-proof suit*

If Boris was mayor this wouldn’t happen!!

A massive Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

to those scummy Londoners!!!

[Uncle fester]

Some positive work from the Gupta Lab Cambridge @GuptaR_lab that omicron is worse at inducing cell to cell fusion than delta and worse spike entry efficiency into lung organoids.
https://t.co/EzbfHMStTt

Ties into data from Gauteng hospitals where far fewer covid patients required oxygen. The Omicron wave is proving to be a damp squib as far as Gauteng is concerned, excess deaths has hardly moved.




With millions of Gautengteners heading to the coastal provinces for holiday/visiting relatives we should soon see infections shoot up in KZN, Western and Eastern Cape. Will be interesting to see how it reflects on hospitalisations and deaths there.

Looks positive. Just need to be careful re population age distribution, etc before extrapolating the results and slapping confirmation bias on top. Would I be right in saying South African age distribution would be distinctly lower than Europe?

[tc27]

2 week lockdown after Christmas now widely being trailed.

[tabascoboy]

2 week lockdown after Christmas now widely being trailed.

Hey, it won't be a "lockdown" but a "circuit breaker"

[Ymx]

I was reading somewhere that our path is now predetermined in terms of this peak. And lockdown post Christmas / New Year would be too late to curb it now. We’ve already rolled the dice.

[Slick]

I never realised until just now that London is terrible in terms of vaccine uptake. Over a third not at all vaccinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Type in area names.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 76746.html

That's a third of eligible people as well. Overall it's over 40% of people in London who've not even had one vaccination.

I’ve just driven down to London area this morning. We stopped 3 times and each time fewer and fewer people were wearing masks. Our last stop just before Oxford was probably about 50/50 in the service station. Madness

[salanya]

The messages are getting very mixed again.

Close the airways, there is a superspreading virus - though it shouldn't be as harmful. So once the virus is in, let's open all the airways again and start spreading the virus further ourselves, as it isn't too bad anyway, so we didn't need to close the aiways and make people stay in expensive isolation hotels in the first place.
But we do have to cancel NHS services, so the remaining NHS staff and volunteers can cancel their Christmasses and do the boosters - obviously this needs to happen at breakneck speed so let's announce it rather than organise it properly.

People should probably avoid social contact, apart from Christmas parties obviously, as we need to keep the economy going. And if the messaging around the virus results in cancellations, that's just tough for the hospitality industry (i.e. the economy).

But we definitely don't need a lockdown, until the cabinet have all been able to hold their Christmas parties and travel to their 2nd or 3rd homes for Christmas. Cause by then we will desperately need a lockdown.

[Ymx]

London admissions



For reference it jumped to 700 last year Dec'20 and 900 Jan'21

[Calculon]

Some positive work from the Gupta Lab Cambridge @GuptaR_lab that omicron is worse at inducing cell to cell fusion than delta and worse spike entry efficiency into lung organoids.
https://t.co/EzbfHMStTt

Ties into data from Gauteng hospitals where far fewer covid patients required oxygen. The Omicron wave is proving to be a damp squib as far as Gauteng is concerned, excess deaths has hardly moved.




With millions of Gautengteners heading to the coastal provinces for holiday/visiting relatives we should soon see infections shoot up in KZN, Western and Eastern Cape. Will be interesting to see how it reflects on hospitalisations and deaths there.

Looks positive. Just need to be careful re population age distribution, etc before extrapolating the results and slapping confirmation bias on top. Would I be right in saying South African age distribution would be distinctly lower than Europe?

Yes, median age around 28, thinks it's around 41 in the UK, will be higher in the likes of Italy and germany.also summer here so that will lower the transmissibility, which just shows you how incredibly transmissible this variant is Althouth few restrictions here to slow spread. Just before the start of this wave I went to a school bazaar, probably over a thousand people packed into the school hall and I was one of the very few people wearing a mask. You do feel a bit silly.

Only 25 percent of population fully vaxxed but high levels of immunity from previous infections, around 70 percent have antibodies to sarscov2. This figure probably higher in most of Europe due to much better vaccination rate . No boosters for general public in South Africa, only for a few thousand health care workers that got single shot j and j back in March April Also something like 19 percent adults are HIV positive, lots of TB, 88 percent latent TB, don't know how that might interact with covid. Even higher level of obesity here than the UK, and loads of diabetes. Other differences in terms of vaccine type and when they are administered.

So not directly comparable to Europe but I think this variant is almost certainly intrinsically milder, to what extent we can't be sure, than Delta, so the level of hype over there seems completely over the top.

[JM2K6]

Because it's insanely contagious, has some amount of immune escape, and because the reasons you gave as to the difference between SA and the UK might just make this a huge problem.

Early analysis isn't that hot here:

[Ymx]

Moderna jab for me. Just done.

From what I’ve read above, it’s been nice knowing you!

[fishfoodie]

Moderna jab for me. Just done.

From what I’ve read above, it’s been nice knowing you!

Snap; got mine this morning.

I think I'll keep hydrated with a nice IPA

[tabascoboy]

COVID-19: Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declares major incident over 'huge surge' of Omicron cases

The mayor of London has declared a major incident in the capital over the "huge surge" of Omicron cases and an increase in hospital admissions.

Sadiq Khan said he has been meeting with colleagues from the NHS, councils and the fire service about the rise in infections of the COVID variant, with more than 10,000 new cases reported nationwide today.

While no new measures have been announced, he said: "In the last 24 hours, we have had the largest number of new cases since the pandemic began, more than 26,000.

"Hospital admissions are going up but also staff absences are going up by massive levels, so I have taken the decision, along with our partners, to declare a major incident."

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-may ... s-12499021

But hey let's go on a mass protest about "freedom"

[Calculon]

Good discussion here

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12 ... _source=tw

[Ymx]

Today, a new analysis suggested both that the hospitalization rate in South Africa may have been reduced by as much as 91 percent, compared to the country’s last wave, and that the death rate among those hospitalized may also have fallen by two-thirds — two points that, taken together, suggest as much as a 25-fold or even 30-fold reduction in mortality. On the same day, a report produced by the Imperial College of London suggested there was no clear indication that, among early British cases, Omicron was any less severe at all — though that analysis was based on just a few dozen cases
….



If you assume that these numbers are correct, it would mean a 30-times reduction in fatality relative to previous waves, which is really something. That brings us down to seasonal flu.

[Sandstorm]

Seasonal flu doesn’t spread this fast!!!

[JM2K6]

Always fun to see a lengthy article posted and then someone replying within a couple of minutes cherry picking some quotes from the first part of it

Here, have another one

Well, it goes back to this fundamental problem. If Omicron is milder, then it will be milder everywhere, irrespective of population or irrespective of the vaccine coverage or prior infection. If it’s not particularly milder itself or only marginally so, and what we are observing here with the South African population is a reflection of the fact that essentially the entire population has been exposed or vaccinated or both, then obviously that’s not portable to any other place. It’s a really major question. And sadly, I don’t think we can extrapolate anything from South Africa, really. We don’t actually even know the vaccine status of the hospitalized.

[Marylandolorian]

Always fun to see a lengthy article posted and then someone replying within a couple of minutes cherry picking some quotes from the first part of it

Here, have another one

Well, it goes back to this fundamental problem. If Omicron is milder, then it will be milder everywhere, irrespective of population or irrespective of the vaccine coverage or prior infection. If it’s not particularly milder itself or only marginally so, and what we are observing here with the South African population is a reflection of the fact that essentially the entire population has been exposed or vaccinated or both, then obviously that’s not portable to any other place. It’s a really major question. And sadly, I don’t think we can extrapolate anything from South Africa, really. We don’t actually even know the vaccine status of the hospitalized.

Thanks JMK, no idea why some people are doing that , also we can’t compare the population of SA with the UK - US ones , one main factor the median age .

[Lemoentjie]

Always fun to see a lengthy article posted and then someone replying within a couple of minutes cherry picking some quotes from the first part of it

Here, have another one

Well, it goes back to this fundamental problem. If Omicron is milder, then it will be milder everywhere, irrespective of population or irrespective of the vaccine coverage or prior infection. If it’s not particularly milder itself or only marginally so, and what we are observing here with the South African population is a reflection of the fact that essentially the entire population has been exposed or vaccinated or both, then obviously that’s not portable to any other place. It’s a really major question. And sadly, I don’t think we can extrapolate anything from South Africa, really. We don’t actually even know the vaccine status of the hospitalized.

But the entire UK population has been exposed or vaccinated or both. You country releases statistics on the % of adults that have Covid-19 antibodies. It's over 95%. That's probably higher than here.

[JM2K6]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

[Biffer]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

Getting there though. In Scotland over 50% of the population over 12 have had their booster. By the end of the year we’ll have a higher percentage of the population with three shots than London has with one.

[Sandstorm]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

Is it because they all want to fuck over the South African tourist season?

[petej]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

Natural immunity varies wildly. The immune system isn't just antibodies. Really depends on success measures, for me I don't care about cases but do care about hospitalisations, deaths etc .. if you can get loads of cases but low number needing treatment or dying then I'm happy for measures and restrictions to be lifted.

[Ymx]

Well certainly the UK is in a much better place in terms of immunisation and antibodies than SA. I doubt that’s even a discussion. 90+% v 70% I think I read earlier.

The SA population median age is younger. Whilst from what I read the relevant base health levels are better in the UK.

If the difference is really 30 times in a relevant size study. Then even given the above it’s quite a stretch to say we can’t read anything in to it.

I appreciate the parallels with delta where countries (UK/US) had varying impact. But I don’t think they amounted to 30 times.

It’s almost like some people are hell bent to discard any positive news or stats. “Throw the whole lot out, look here’s a slight difference which renders all of it meaningless”. Rather than taking it as very encouraging but with expectations there will be some differences.

I almost wonder what some people are actually hoping to emerge from this? It feels like some want it to be worse. And want to stay in perpetual masked lockdown. I’m sure no one would be that messed up though.

[JM2K6]

Well certainly the UK is in a much better place in terms of immunisation and antibodies than SA. I doubt that’s even a discussion. 90+% v 70% I think I read earlier.

The SA population median age is younger. Whilst from what I read the relevant base health levels are better in the UK.

If the difference is really 30 times in a relevant size study. Then even given the above it’s quite a stretch to say we can’t read anything in to it.

I appreciate the parallels with delta where countries (UK/US) had varying impact. But I don’t think they amounted to 30 times.

It’s almost like some people are hell bent to discard any positive news or stats. “Throw the whole lot out, look here’s a slight difference which renders all of it meaningless”. Rather than taking it as very encouraging but with expectations there will be some differences.

I almost wonder what some people are actually hoping to emerge from this? It feels like some want it to be worse. And want to stay in perpetual masked lockdown. I’m sure no one would be that messed up though.

The whole point is that it's a load of "if"s that you're treating as "definitely". You're willing to listen to someone when they mention some stats you like the sound of, but ignore them when they say we can't draw conclusions yet and that a simple comparison would be wrong.

It'll be fucking great if Omicron just isn't that bad compared to the original strain, but like they all say we're just going to have to wait and see.

[convoluted]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

Natural immunity varies wildly. The immune system isn't just antibodies. Really depends on success measures, for me. I don't care about cases but do care about hospitalizations, deaths etc .. if you can get loads of cases but low number needing treatment or dying then I'm happy for measures and restrictions to be lifted.

^^^ am in total agreement, Petej.
It appears that a mass of the Saffa Omicron cases are being identified only because many presenting themselves at hospitals for totally unrelated medical or physical issues show up as infected when compulsorily tested.
Relatively few SA Omicron cases require hospitilization, and their length of stay averages little more than two days.

With Omicron 'seepage' into the lungs seeming minimal does that just mean it happens slowly and the full hit comes later, or is it a positive signal of very little lung damage? Time will tell.

[convoluted]

Natural immunity does not last that long, you can get reinfected by omicron, two jabs isn't that effective against omicron and our booster levels are not yet good enough

There's a reason why the experts keep saying the same thing

Are these 'experts' of which you speak the exact same ones who assured you that the current pestilence was entirely natural and in no way connected to the Wuhan lab ... ????

[Ymx]

Well certainly the UK is in a much better place in terms of immunisation and antibodies than SA. I doubt that’s even a discussion. 90+% v 70% I think I read earlier.

The SA population median age is younger. Whilst from what I read the relevant base health levels are better in the UK.

If the difference is really 30 times in a relevant size study. Then even given the above it’s quite a stretch to say we can’t read anything in to it.

I appreciate the parallels with delta where countries (UK/US) had varying impact. But I don’t think they amounted to 30 times.

It’s almost like some people are hell bent to discard any positive news or stats. “Throw the whole lot out, look here’s a slight difference which renders all of it meaningless”. Rather than taking it as very encouraging but with expectations there will be some differences.

I almost wonder what some people are actually hoping to emerge from this? It feels like some want it to be worse. And want to stay in perpetual masked lockdown. I’m sure no one would be that messed up though.

The whole point is that it's a load of "if"s that you're treating as "definitely". You're willing to listen to someone when they mention some stats you like the sound of, but ignore them when they say we can't draw conclusions yet and that a simple comparison would be wrong.

It'll be fucking great if Omicron just isn't that bad compared to the original strain, but like they all say we're just going to have to wait and see.

No one I can see above is treating the if's as definitely. Its the opposite of that, the doomers are writing off strong positive indicators with a "well its different, I can't or won't read anything in to that".

The positive indicators are strong, but will vary between environments as per the statistical world we live in. There of course will be factors which reduce/change that 30 times number between countries. But reduced by 30?? I'm imagining human virulence differences that huge would lie in very small small part of the distribution curve.

It'll be fucking great if Omicron just isn't that bad compared to the original strain

Now was that so fucking hard to say !

[Lemoentjie]

This is interesting....

[JM2K6]

the doomers are writing off strong positive indicators with a "well its different, I can't or won't read anything in to that".

When so many authorities on the topic are stressing that we can't read anything into it, when Whitty goes out of his way to point out that people are misinterpreting the data from SA, then it's not being a "doomer". We'll know in a few weeks. Until then you're just pissing into the wind and mocking the people who refuse to.

Also the weird conspiracy theorist is on your side, it seems.

[Lemoentjie]

I have no idea why you think I'm a conspiracy theorist. I'm vaccinated, I wear a mask in places where it's required (when I don't forget).

Ignoring that 65% of Covid admissions in London are people who are in hospital for reasons that are not Covid, means you can't look honestly at the data.