Why the panic of Omicron is mild?

[WineGetsMeThroughIt]

All of this just seems utter bollocks. A handful of new cases of a variant that could potentially pose less of a threat than delta. Yet with delta we were basically told to keep calm and carry on. No masks, no isolating, children or C+ parents going to school, no social distancing or any rules really.

I'm seeing news reports now encouraging everyone to go get their booster jab and their flu jab to help protect against the new variant and flu this winter. But if you come in contact or test positive with Omicron even if you're fully vaccinated then you must isolate for 8 days. Then seeing other reports saying that Omicron is resistant to the vaccine, so the pharm companies are rushing out a new vaccine - so potentially everyone will be encouraged to get a 4th vaccine.

Meanwhile even though you're vaccinated you can still spread it and it's been said that the first positive case of Omicron to enter this country was via a fully vaxx'd person because that's the only way you can travel now. But the vaccines were the ticket of this pandemic they said. Obviously there are fewer ill people because of the vaccine, but there are also a lot of people experiencing worrying Ng side effects with them as well. What will the build up of all these vaccines be doing to us I wonder. Genuine question we may not know for years.

Im just getting so fed up with all this now. It's so depressing

Maybe because we are going into the winter which always means more pressure on hospitals. And hospitals, after 20+ months of Covid, are barely functioning in a lot of cases.

They know the variant has quite alot of differences to the covid variant that was used to design the vaxx. This means there's quite a liklihood that even the fully vaxxed won't be as protected as they are against the current variants.
Also they think its highly infectious.
So until they know the impact of this variant and whether the vaccines are or are hot effective, how infectious it is and what's its impact in those more vulnerable to covid - they are actually taking some minor steps to control it a bit. Rather than letting it rip to potentially pile more bodies high.
First time they have done something right in my view- but masks should have remained compulsory on public transport and in shops throughout.
It makes sense to take these measures while they work out if they really do need to impose more or if it's no more if a problem than the current variants.

Where does this all end?

I'm guess that there'll just be new variants now forever?

Define "mild." Weeks of utter exhaustion and weeks of blinding headaches seem to be the main symptoms, but far, FAR more contagious. Myself, I do not want any of them, including this "mild" Omicron. And the more it spreads around, the higher the chance of a REALLY devastating variant, with Omicron's contagion rate, and Delta's death rate.

@foxgoosefinch

No-one has ever said that vaccination is a ticket out of the pandemic. (Hardly likely given the number of people who refuse to have it.)

Scientists and medics were upfront from the very start about the continued risks posed by variants and vaccine escape.

Weren’t you listening?

Well said!

I'm getting sick of people not recognising risk and blithely waiting to be told what to do and then complaining about what they're being asked to do...

@immersivereader

Where does this all end?

I'm guess that there'll just be new variants now forever?

It can only mutate if we keep letting it spread.

If we clean the indoor air with HEPA filtration like we had to clean the water to stop cholera happening, then calibrate which other NPIs are necessary to stop the spread as well as vaccinate we can end Covid.

@princess really? Where are you getting that info from?

@Veeveeoxox

I'm not one for the tin foil hat but it does make me wonder are they trying to soften us up scare us into more restrictions ?

yes of course they are , its a given , just constant control now , which is why i wont comply anymore , i wasnt one for the conspricys , but its strange how many of those theories the tin foilers were talking about have all come true

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@princess really? Where are you getting that info from?[/quote]
I'm not saying anything new or controversial.

Viruses only mutate when they spread.

Stop the spread.

End the virus.

Covid is airborne.

So preventing airborne spread is the key.

HEPA filters are brilliant at that.

Viruses previously have mutated gradually to become less deadly, over a few years, omicron may actually be the start of that. But we’ve never had such a wide spread early vaccination programme before. The world really needs to get the vaccines spread out more widely and increase take up.

@Justcannotbearsed

Viruses previously have mutated gradually to become less deadly, over a few years, omicron may actually be the start of that. But we’ve never had such a wide spread early vaccination programme before. The world really needs to get the vaccines spread out more widely and increase take up.

Viruses have also mutated but not become any less deadly, or mutated to become more deadly.

Flu existed before The Spanish Flu mutation that killed 50 million people.

Bird flu used to be harmless to humans, now it isn't.

Ebola mutated to become more virulent.

I don't see any indication that covid is evolving into less of a threat. Alpha was worse than original covid, and Delta is worse than Alpha.

And there's nothing concrete yet on Omicron going that way.

@PrincessNutNuts you can’t use hepafilters outside. 🧐 plus, if it was that easy we would have irradiated all viruses by now including colds.

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@PrincessNutNuts you can’t use hepafilters outside. 🧐 plus, if it was that easy we would have irradiated all viruses by now including colds.[/quote]
There's a lot of ventilation outside so HEPA filters aren't really needed.

And the facts are pretty simple.

It's an airborne virus.

It spreads through people breathing in air that was recently in someone else's infected lungs.

It can only mutate if it spreads.

Filter the air.

Stop the spread.

End covid.

@PrincessNutNuts

Filter the air. Stop the spread. End covid.

Thinking we can end Covid by filtering the air is totally unrealistic. I may help along with ventilation, but Covid is here to stay I'm afraid... It's fanciful to believe we can eradicate it, at least with the current tools at our disposal.

[quote Warhertisuff]@PrincessNutNuts

Filter the air. Stop the spread. End covid.

Thinking we can end Covid by filtering the air is totally unrealistic. I may help along with ventilation, but Covid is here to stay I'm afraid... It's fanciful to believe we can eradicate it, at least with the current tools at our disposal.[/quote]
"it may help..:" not "I may help..."

I really don't know where the lies about viruses always mutating to become less virulent started, but goodness people are invested in believing those lies.

Sadly, there's absolutely no evolutionary pressure on sars-cov2 to become less severe because people infect others a long time before they get seriously ill (before even symptomatic - a winning evolutionary strategy). As long as the host infects others, it doesn't really matter (from a viral evolution point of view) if the host then dies.

It's not rocket science.

It's ALREADY mutated to become more severe once with Delta, and to become more transmissible several times.

How people can blindly believe something that for this virus hasn't happened yet in the face of the opposite having already happened is quite something.

Fortunately there is also no evolutionary pressure for it to become more severe so basically it's a bit random. Let's hope for Omicron it's the same or milder, that would be nice, but there's absolutely no robust data either way yet.

There IS evolutionary pressure for it to become more transmissible which is why we've seen variants that are more transmissible take over a number of times already.

It's like an arms race - we're putting in place measures to cut transmission (well we were, not so much now) and the virus is evolving to become more transmissible.

The best way to minimise mutation is to generally keep virus levels lower. Something Asian countries have been good at and we've been utterly useless at. We're not ventilating, filtering air or masking as much as we could quite easily with minimal disruption - all of which is more likely to keep life normal than allowing the virus lots of opportunities to spread and mutate.

But no-one wants to hear that. It's depressing.

Savid Javid looks like a frightened rabbit in the glare of the headlights this government must feel it is war without end. In a better run country we would have a government of all the talents and parties and ec ministers drafted in to help with individual task forces and projects. Instead we get half baked badly executed projects glossed up with Johnsonian boosterism.

What do you think about the argument that mass vaccination creates possibly more severe mutations as the virus tries to evade vaccine protection?

In Princess's world, people are only being allowed to gather in spaces that can invest in top-end air filtration systems. Great.

Also, you do realize this virus now has animal reservoirs, Princess?

Some people still think we can eradicate coronavirus

Bizarre

@southeastdweller
The NHS hasn't been fit for purpose for years but it's not on its knees

It is when it cannot provide ambulances or have a functioning AE service.
6m are waiting for treatments, many will die in pain waiting.
NHS vacancies are 110k, we ve lost so many GPs since Brexit and have no plan to recruit more (Cameron promised 5000 by 2020, we got a zero increase)
A social care sector which cannot take patients from our hospitals.

"On its knees" would be a rather optimistic description.

@Lostinacloud

What do you think about the argument that mass vaccination creates possibly more severe mutations as the virus tries to evade vaccine protection?

Vaccination creates a selection pressure to evade the vaccines, but is clearly still better than no vaccination., The alternative is not to have vaccination which is clearly not any better on an individual or population level in terms of death or disability. Especially since natural herd immunity doesn't seem possible (Manaus, Brazil - mass graves etc).

You will get more virus mutation the more virus there is so out of control levels of covid are not good in either vaccinated or unvaccinated populations.

If you keep levels of the virus low when you vaccinate widely, the chances of vaccine evading variants arising and taking over are low - which is why the vaccine plus approach adopted by many countries is the way out of this.

We've allowed massive levels of covid to persist since September, and many many scientists have said that this creates huge selection pressure toward vaccine evading variants as well as an environment where more mutations can arise. Especially where you have a lot of transmission / infection happening from an unvaccinated population with massive levels of infection (kids) who live with a vaccinated or - even worse - partially vaccinated population (parents). We don't seem to have got a new much fitter variant (like we did with Alpha) in this time which has been pretty lucky, but now we're importing one that is going to absolutely thrive in that environment. We would be much better off and more able to slow spread of Omicron if levels of infection weren't as high as they are.

It's a stupid strategy to get say 60% vaccinated and then open up totally (which is pretty much what we've done) because you're giving the virus massive opportunity to mutate in a partially vaccinated population Far better to drive levels of infection to a low level, get vaccination really high and then the chances of vaccine evading variants taking over are lower.

This is obviously true on a global scale too, we need lots of vaccination as well as keeping rates of infection low worldwide. But the UK, US and all the main economies haven't delivered even what they said they would in terms of vaccines. And now they're reaping the rewards.

@Lostinacloud

What do you think about the argument that mass vaccination creates possibly more severe mutations as the virus tries to evade vaccine protection?

Even if that were true, what is the alternative? we had daily deaths of over 1500 a day without them.

Perhaps a better argument is that we vaccinate the RoW, though that may be too late now, we were warned this might happen but focused on our own populations.

@AlecTrevelyan006

Some people still think we can eradicate coronavirus

Bizarre

There are odd suggestions based round this.

Vaccines work. DS13 tested positive for COVID yet DH, DD, and I (all fully jabbed) have all tested negative.

However, I find the moves towards mandatory jabs, vaccine passports, etc rather sinister. I can't see any govt willingly giving up the seemingly total control they now have over peoples lives. I think this is what a lot of people have been protesting about, not just the vaccines per se.