Some good news: confirmation new strain is not more virulent

[bathsh3ba]

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/uk-covid-variant-spreads-easily-does-not-lead-severe-disease

Yes, I saw this earlier. Here is a link to the paper if anyone wants to read it.

That's good to know! Thank you

but it does spread more easily

That's a win, but if it spreads more easily, that is more of a pain for the NHS. This thread explains it:

twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1343567425107881986

That’s better than it could have been though.

That's good news. Thanks for posting.
Lots of people on here won't like you posting good news and will find some doom in it

This isn't news. We were told it spread more easily but didn't cause more serious illness last week.

Yes I also seemed to already know this?. Does that paper mention children?

That's really good news.

First lockdown I was ok and managed.

Last one did t seem too bad as working still (school staff)

This time round I'm struggling. Want to work as love my job and love feeling like I'm teaching pupils something.

But I also have a real fear with case rises and the safety aspect of schools right now.

Thank you. To pps, this report was published by PHE yesterday. Last week Neil Ferguson was on Sky News explaining that they thought this was the case, here is the evidence.

No, I don't think they know for sure that children spread it more easily than they did the old variant. Ferguson said it may be the case that they spread it more like adults. I think the only info so far is correlation: cases going up in younger children fast in areas that seem to have a high and growing proportion of the new variant. But they haven't shown a causal link yet. Please someone jump in if they have newer info....

Also waiting to find out about virulence/age affected for the South African variant....

Yes I also seemed to already know this?. Does that paper mention children?

That’s the question I’d like to see answered.

@MarinPrime

This isn't news. We were told it spread more easily but didn't cause more serious illness last week.

Mo last week they didn't think it was virulent. They didn't have any evidence it was but couldn't say and were investigating.

Now they have data to back that hypothesis.

This is really good news. I'm not sure that everyone will believe it though, sadly. I'm on another thread where someone talked about the new strain being more dangerous did children. There's no evidence of this, but I think once they've got the idea in their head it's hard to shift

Last week they said it's 70% more transmissible, still said no difference in the severity of the disease it caused. So this isn't news.

I've been irked by all the panic caused by "the new strain". Boris did us no favours using it as an excuse to cancel Christmas when allowing mixing was always a bone headed idea.

If this new strain isn't as severe as the original, why has the number of people been admitted to hospital and the death rate increased ?

And more spreadable means a higher number of people who become seriously ill and die. Unfortunately. I feel that is important to state just in case anyone is tempted to use this sort of thing in the antivax, "it's all a media hype", healthy people dont have anything to worry about type arguments.... the hospitalization rate and critical illness rate may remain the same or even slightly decrease, but absolute numbers are likely to increase.

And more spreadable means a higher number of people who become seriously ill and die. Unfortunately. I feel that is important to state just in case anyone is tempted to use this sort of thing in the antivax, "it's all a media hype", healthy people dont have anything to worry about type arguments

Exactly this. So many people just don’t get this. The strain isn’t more likely to kill a person, but is more likely to infect more people meaning cases and deaths will rise.

@princessTiasmum

If this new strain isn't as severe as the original, why has the number of people been admitted to hospital and the death rate increased ?

We actually don't have complete evidence for this.

Back in March and April we weren't testing everyone with symptoms.

So it's hard to know how today's figures compare.

What we do know is deaths are heading to same level and numbers in hospital have increased to higher.

And that estimates are 100k people a day we're catching it and estimates now are 90k (50k tested)

Chris Whitty told us last week it was more transmissible but not more virulent. He said it would present as a cold in most cases.

The strain they were concerned about re effects on children was the South Africa one.

This is about the Kent strain

We don't know about the SA one yet

Umm virulent literally means more contagious, which it is. I'm confused

Oh I do apologise, no it doesn't.

@MintyMabel

And more spreadable means a higher number of people who become seriously ill and die. Unfortunately. I feel that is important to state just in case anyone is tempted to use this sort of thing in the antivax, "it's all a media hype", healthy people dont have anything to worry about type arguments

Exactly this. So many people just don’t get this. The strain isn’t more likely to kill a person, but is more likely to infect more people meaning cases and deaths will rise.

Not necessarily if the rise in cases is mainly in the younger age groups who are less likely to be hospitalised/die.

Contagious: how easy it spreads.
Virulent: how nasty it is once you've caught it.

Took me a while to untangle that too.

But I dont think there is any evidence (yet) that this new strain infects elderly people less well than the previously dominant ones. If you look at the age heat maps for south east and eastern england cases tend to start in younger age groups before percolating up to older age groups.