Indian variant - why the panic?

[Doireallyneedaname]

Multiple news stories over the last 24 hours stating that the vaccines are effective against it; as well as lab studies last week showing the same, yet the panic continues. Why?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57134181

@PetraRabbit

Non stop news coverage I think.....all day today the repetitive tone is "urgent roll out of vaccine to young people....Indian variant.....etc". It appears designed to induce panic vaccinations? Variants were predicted at the start of all this by the whole scientific community as part of a normal virus lifecycle but the media likes to act shocked and call them double triple mutants. Obviously the media is being fed this tone at least in part by government.

There have been sudden increases in areas of Bolton and a few other parts of the country though. That hasn't happened for a while now- the last time it turned out to be a new variant in Kent and that spread out very quickly.

The new variant in Kent induced a lot of panic but didn’t live up to the hype. If you remember the 70% more transmissible figure.

Lethality counts more than transmissibility.

@TatianaBis

The new variant in Kent induced a lot of panic but didn’t live up to the hype. If you remember the 70% more transmissible figure.

Lethality counts more than transmissibility.

Because we had a massive countrywide lockdown closing all schools, non essential retail and basically cancelling Christmas.

[quote mumwon]@Leonardsgirl I wonder if they were qualified nurses or nursing assistants? ie older women who really didn't understand the medicine[/quote]
Wow

We had lockdown because Covid cases were rising generally. In the Covid cases that continued over lockdown, the Kent variant hasn’t performed significantly different from any other.

@TatianaBis

We had lockdown because Covid cases were rising generally. In the Covid cases that continued over lockdown, the Kent variant hasn’t performed significantly different from any other.

Because of the Kent variant being more transmissible.

@TatianaBis

The new variant in Kent induced a lot of panic but didn’t live up to the hype. If you remember the 70% more transmissible figure.

Lethality counts more than transmissibility.

What you mean it didn't live up to the hype? It caused a second wave, a lot of deaths and lockdown again. I think it's a good idea to learn from that and for everybody to be cautious now.

@TatianaBis

The new variant in Kent induced a lot of panic but didn’t live up to the hype. If you remember the 70% more transmissible figure.

Lethality counts more than transmissibility.

You do know our case count went up by over two million between mid-December to now and fatalities by around 60k?

Covid was rising generally. The Kent variant was prevalent in certain parts of the country notably Kent, where my sister lives, yet half of Kent had very few cases.

@TatianaBis

We had lockdown because Covid cases were rising generally. In the Covid cases that continued over lockdown, the Kent variant hasn’t performed significantly different from any other.

It has performed differently as it overtook all the other variants due to the fact it is significantly more transmissible. People who were infected were also more likely to die than people infected with the previous strain.

@TatianaBis

Covid was rising generally. The Kent variant was prevalent in certain parts of the country notably Kent, where my sister lives, yet half of Kent had very few cases.

It started to rise in Kent and then spread out. Half of Kent did not have "very few cases" at all. Have you ever looked at the interactive map?

@Cornettoninja

Yes I did thanks. Influenza deaths in 2018 were 29,000, 2019 was 26,000.

So there were around 30,000 extra deaths this winter from Covid beyond what we normally see. Which is distressing, but I think we need to keep things in perspective and not panic.

@TatianaBis

The new variant in Kent induced a lot of panic but didn’t live up to the hype. If you remember the 70% more transmissible figure.

Lethality counts more than transmissibility.

'Didn't live up to the hype' sorry?

The Kent variant caused more deaths in the second wave than we had in the first wave. Increased transimissibility is a massive problem.

I think winter would have been quite different without the Kent variant.

That’s not to say we’re in for the same as a high proportion of vulnerable are vaccinated compared to then.

Did I miss all those deaths once the Kent variant got hold in a number of areas and not just in this country?

[quote TatianaBis]@Cornettoninja

Yes I did thanks. Influenza deaths in 2018 were 29,000, 2019 was 26,000.

So there were around 30,000 extra deaths this winter from Covid beyond what we normally see. Which is distressing, but I think we need to keep things in perspective and not panic.[/quote]
It caused those extra deaths and months of lockdown. People don't want either to happen again.

@ineedaholidaynow

Did I miss all those deaths once the Kent variant got hold in a number of areas and not just in this country?

Very true. It hasn't just caused deaths in the UK.

Pictures here you are again telling people they're wrong and hyping things up more than they are.

@KurtWilde

Pictures here you are again telling people they're wrong and hyping things up more than they are.

OK, you are being a bit weird now, I think you should stop thinking about what I post and focus on what you would like to do instead.

It started to rise in Kent and then spread out. Half of Kent did not have "very few cases" at all. Have you ever looked at the interactive map?

Well yes, given that my sister was on it. The key as I said is not so much the number of cases as the number of mortalities, due to the volume of asymptomatic and mild cases.

Figures for the end of March showed the total number of people in Kent who have died of Covid was around 5,000. The majority of those are in people who are old/vulnerable/had pre-existing conditions hence the vaccination focus on these people.

Iirc R with schools open was under 1 in November last year

After Kent variant we had to do a stricter lockdown over Christmas. We could have got through without this

@TatianaBis

It started to rise in Kent and then spread out. Half of Kent did not have "very few cases" at all. Have you ever looked at the interactive map?

Well yes, given that my sister was on it. The key as I said is not so much the number of cases as the number of mortalities, due to the volume of asymptomatic and mild cases.

Figures for the end of March showed the total number of people in Kent who have died of Covid was around 5,000. The majority of those are in people who are old/vulnerable/had pre-existing conditions hence the vaccination focus on these people.

You said that there were very few cases in Kent. You didn't say that there are very few deaths. Anyway, the fact that the variant didn't cause many deaths where your sister lives is not really the point unless you think only deaths in Kent matter . The increase in Kent due to the variant led to increases elsewhere in the UK and the world and that caused a lot of deaths.

The Kent variant caused more deaths in the second wave than we had in the first wave. Increased transimissibility is a massive problem.

Unless you test every individual for the specific variant, you don’t know which variant they died of. Only 5-10% of tests are sent for genome analysis.

Coronaviruses are seasonal, so it was no surprise to see a second wave over the winter, when lockdown was eased and everyone rushed out to the pub and Christmas shopping. That coincided with the Kent variant, however we would have had a second wave anyway and flu season.

People don't seem to realise that scientists would choose increased lethality over increased transmission because the latter ends up with a higher mortality rate.

Not enough people have had the vaccine to avoid another peak.

There isn't panic. But there is quite rightly concern.

You said that there were very few cases in Kent.

Yes serious ie hospitalised cases. That’s the only way you can really quantify the cases due the high numbers of asymptomatic and mild cases, and also the inaccuracy of PCR testing.

It was very patchy. Large numbers of cases were concentrated in certain areas of Kent. And there were other areas with relatively few cases.