Seventy percent more transmissiable

[Justanotherdayina]

Can someone explain how is it ?

My elderly mum was sitting outside a SE hospital for 11 hours in a ambulance in a covid hotspot.

People saying :you have to keep the fear up" I call BS on. 700 case in 100,000 in a hotspot is 0.007 chance of getting it. Low right we can all agree. But those 700 people per 100,000 in a densely populated deprived area that has had no extra hospital bed in decades, looks like 11 hours in a back of a ambulance then 15 hours in A&E.

Also who goes out to the heart attacks when 15 ambulances are stacked for 5 plus each out side of A&E? They was being called out from 30 miles away.

Will you die of covid? In reality it's unlikely.

Will your parents get a ambulance within five minutes of a heart attack or a stroke? If your where my mum lives? Extremely unlikely.

So will people die? Yep. Yes people will die, but maybe not of covid

That scares me. It scares the shit out of me. I'm not scared of dieing from covid. Not at all

Exactly, you may be unlikely to die from Covid but what happens when you have a car accident and there arent any ventilators available because we just let Covid run riot

It literally said on the news before that it MAY be spreading faster but it’s no more dangerous that the current strain 🤷‍♀️

Yes Germany may be going into lockdown but you can still have a small number of people inside your house?

You only have to look at the soaring cases in Ashford and our overloaded hospitals here in Kent — East Kent trust currently has 86% more C19 patients than during the spring peak in late April. This mutation is legit.

Just back from a drive (to walking spot for exercise) and passed three ambulances attending homes.

Please take this seriously.

That’s a very good post @HMSBeagle

@Elephant4

It's a load of old bollocks.

When they need to open shops again this mutation will suddenly be forgotten.

There is no new mutation.

It's important to remember that this strain is no more lethal. Simply put, it's more "spiky" so stickier so more contagious. Washing hands, masks and distancing still offer the same protection as with the original strain.

It's also worth remembering that the vaccines are designed to be "tweaked" to suit a mutation of the virus. They will still be effective and like flu season, the vaccine will be changed yearly to suit the most virulent strain.

The vaccination programme is still key to controlling the virus and keeping cases low. It's just a case of suppressing transmission until that point with stricter measures/ minimal socialising and shutting indoor public areas.

I think it's important to remain positive.

@SmileyClare exactly what I just said. Surely it will start becoming less deadly the more it mutates?

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@SmileyClare exactly what I just said. Surely it will start becoming less deadly the more it mutates?[/quote]
No

That is of course possible. But it’s not a given. It might stay pretty much as is

It's always important with a virus to remember that being too deadly is bad for it as it limits transmission. Viruses in general want to be highly contagious but with low mortality.

I imagine it's been spreading incredibly successfully in schools where pupils sit shoulder to shoulder without any masks on in classrooms.

@marvelousmadmadammim

If the numbers of confirmed cases coming out of our school are anything to go by it is rampant.

What are the numbers? 10 per cent of my son's year currently have Covid (in the West Midlands). Cases rampant here since September, yet before the new strain, so I'm curious to know if the new strain is taking out even more than this?

Yes I'm not professing to be an expert but a virus mutation will flourish if it is more contagious but doesn't kill the host. Sorry that sounds a bit blunt. It is not suddenly more deadly than the original, it doesn't cause worse symptoms.

A mutation is actually a genetic fault in reproduction. It happens quite often but sometimes that mutation flourishes if it 's characteristics make it more transmissible. This is how most viruses behave.

However, the stats now show it is being spread more quickly. The R rate has been pushed up over 1. (1.1-1.2) Cases will continue to increase with an R1+ Thats cause for tighter restrictions. The r rate can only be brought down by changing behaviour or increasing immunity (most effectively by vaccinating).

Dd was the 6th in her form this week, we won't hear about more from the school as they went to online learning Tuesday.

@Igotjelly

It's always important with a virus to remember that being too deadly is bad for it as it limits transmission. Viruses in general want to be highly contagious but with low mortality.

From what I understand that is true in general. However, unfortunately with Covid, the incubation period is so long that it has ample opportunity for further transmission, and it therefore is not so relevant whether it kills the host or not. If I have understood this correctly.

It won’t matter if there are more cases if they don’t result in hospitalisations/deaths. We’ve become far too focussed on case numbers but they really mean very little if most people have it mildly and recover at home.

@bumbleymummy

It won’t matter if there are more cases if they don’t result in hospitalisations/deaths. We’ve become far too focussed on case numbers but they really mean very little if most people have it mildly and recover at home.

Long covid long covid long covid. I know far too many people with this.

More transmissible normally means it’s weaker. Ie more people are walking around completely unaware they are infected and are therefore spreading it wider. Given that many people in power have now personally invested into the vaccine it is definitely in their interest to ensure that the majority of the population don’t get a naturally occurring low level dose of the disease.

@Justanotherdayina

So can measures be taken against it? I.e. instead of 2 m/ 4m distance. Wear latex gloves ? I thought it was a given , if I was in a non ventilated room with someone with covid, I was most likely to catch it , so how can it be 70% more than that ?

Well no, or every school child and member of teaching and learning support staff would have it. We all do 5 hours a day in a room with people, many of whom have it. Don’t be over dramatic.

More transmissible normally means it’s weaker.

But it isn't yet known if this is the case with Covid.

More cases = more hospitalisations. We have a massive elderly population, average age expectancy UK is high (81yrs.) The average age in covid deaths is 82yrs.

Therefore even a cold or a common bug can wipe out the over 80's. A different strain of cv, even if slightly less harmful symptomatically is still lethal for the very vulnerable.

A young woman (privately educated/intelligent??) said to DH today she’s not having the vaccine because it has a liquid microchip in it.

No wonder there is so much BS on here and SM.

C19 is a virus. A virus’s job is to replicate and spread. This new strain does just that only more effectively. It’s what they do. Sometimes it makes them weaker, sometimes not. It happens all the time to viruses.

Yes I'm not professing to be an expert but a virus mutation will flourish if it is more contagious but doesn't kill the host. Sorry that sounds a bit blunt. It is not suddenly more deadly than the original, it doesn't cause worse symptoms

That's only true up to a point. The virus needs to avoid killing its host before it finds its next host. As SARS-COV2 is infectious before symptoms, there is no need to prolong the life of the host. Indeed it's arguably the opposite - killing the host means that the virus it passed on cannot waste time returning too this or any other previous and therefore immune host.

Now, at some point that strategy fails because it kills all hosts. But if it kills only a moderate number, and those who survive lose immunity in 6-12 months and can be successfully reinfected, then there's no reason that more lethal versions to die out

@laidbacklife

More transmissible normally means it’s weaker. Ie more people are walking around completely unaware they are infected and are therefore spreading it wider. Given that many people in power have now personally invested into the vaccine it is definitely in their interest to ensure that the majority of the population don’t get a naturally occurring low level dose of the disease.

Yes but ...

From what I've read the experts consider that there hasn't yet been selective pressure on this virus to become LESS virulent. It already has a pretty effective asymptomatic transmission period (the two day "symptom free" window) so no pressing need for it to tone down its severity.

So this new mutation (or rather, new set of mutations) could well have resulted in the current coronavirus becoming more infectious but not necessarily less severe in its presentation ... And that's why the mutation is so worrying. We may still have a virus with exactly the same death rate etc., but now it's even more infectious.

The general evolutionary progress amongst viruses to reduced severity (virulence) usually takes years, not months, to come to pass.

I don't want to scaremonger - I just think that's probably why the government and SAGE have taken the decisions they have. Or at least that's how I've understood the data they've presented and the rationale behind further lockdown.