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

It makes sense to act swiftly and prepare for the worst case, than do nothing and regret later.
No one knows much about this variant, if it's turned out to be mild, then that's great.

The quote from the doctor was on the Andrew Marr show

^"Dr Coetzee said: “What we are seeing clinically in south Africa, and remember I’m at the epicentre – that’s where I’m practising – it’s extremely mild. For us, that’s mild cases.”

When asked if the UK was “panicking unnecessarily”, she said: “I think you already have it there in your country and you’re not knowing it, and I would say, yes, at this stage I would say definitely.

“Two weeks from now maybe we will say something different.”^

But as said multiple times upthread, the WHO are worried about it, she's just one doctor, and it's best to be careful rather than unwind from being blase about it.

Hopefully it'll be a 2 minute wonder and we'll be all back to a more normal regime.

It is because no one really knows. This variant was only discovered two weeks ago and seems to be very infectious.
A medic in South Africa said she had healthy patients in their twenties and thirties coming to her with a bad headache and total exhaustion, but they recovered. These were the first reports of the new variant.
But they were on young, healthy people. They didn't have the usual symptoms of coronavirus such as a cough or a temperature, just bad headaches and a feeling of exhaustion.
Looking theoretically at the new variant, scientists are worried that both vaccines and naturally acquired immunity through the previous infection, may not offer much protection. Everyone agrees vaccines and previous infection will offer some protection, but estimates of how much vary wildly, because no one really knows.

South Africa has a very young population. Britain has a very old population. The concerns is if this variant spreads quickly, will it affect older people badly? And how much will they be protected by vaccines and previous infection? No one knows is the answer.

It takes an average of about 3-4 weeks from the first infection to someone dying, and it can take much longer. And healthy 20-30-year-olds have never been at real risk of dying from coronavirus anyway. So nobody knows it will be mild in Britain with a much older age population, or if it will hospitalise and kill many. But the structure of the mutation is worrying scientists.
When we know so little, caution makes sense.

Its like if we know there is a fire in a room but not how big it is, it makes sense to be cautious and find out how big it is by looking through windows, etc, rather than just opening the door and running in.
This variation will probably spread all around Britain, but the more we know, the more preparations can be made. At best that will be carry on as before with Delta. At worst it might be lockdowns.

The fact many countries have closed their borders, is quite worrying.

I just saw this on the data thread about hospitalisations tripling...

<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1465037954783621131" target="_blank">http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1465037954783621131

The panic is because we know that omicron has 2 mutations that we have seen before that increase transmissibility but have not occurred together in previous variants; it has mutations that we know affect the ability of antibodies to identify the virus and bind to the virus so immunity from vaccination or infection may not be as good; and it has some other mutations that make the virus fitter/stronger. What we don't know is to what extent the combination of those mutations while affect transmissibility, virulence (severity of illness) and immune escape.

There is no real evidence that omicron is mild, just some anecdotal data based on a handful of young, healthy patients. We don't even know how many cases there are yet. You need a huge sample of many thousands to be able to even start trying to learn anything about how virulent/transmissible it is. It's going to take weeks to get that data and, in the worst case scenario, if omicron can evade the vaccine/natural immunity and is more transmissible than previous variants (whether it is more virulent or not), then it will be too late to stop/mitigate the spread if we wait for the data.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/232217/qa-imperial-experts-discuss-variant-b11529/

’a lot of people experiencing worrying 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’

Not that you have an agenda

We don’t know that it is mild. It could be that the people infected are young so likely to get mild disease. It’s too early to know.

Better to be cautious and release than be too complacent.

The mutations on this virus suggest that it may be both more transmissible and have more immune escape. So it’s potentially worse than delta. We don’t know yet if it’s milder . Seems unlikely. This doctor who said was talking about a handful of cases in young people. So the information is meaningless.
If you have an extremely transmissible virus the worry is that numbers of infected people at any one time could be very high. Some of those people will have severe illness and some will die. And if lots of people are off work at the same time , especially key workers, that can cause major issues for health care and the economy. So you have to take steps to minimise transmission. Vaccines are a very important tool but won’t be enough. If they reduce the burden of severe illness and hospitalisation though - that makes a huge difference.
A small percentage of a huge number of people being seriously ill can be a large number.
And it might be just a few cases but growth is exponential. The best way I’ve heard of to understand that this is - imagine a pond covered in lily pads . The coverage doubles every day. It takes 30 days to be fully covered . So when is it half covered? On day 29 !
So numbers can be small initially but rapidly get out of control.

No-one has ever said that vaccination is a ticket out of the pandemic

It's funny how the narrative changes so much.

Literally a week ago it was all about the unvaccinated keeping the pandemic going (i.e. the only way out of this is to have everyone vaccinated).

When the vaccines were 'launched' it was literally called V-Day.

Thanks @AcceptableFox and @chesirecat99 its good to have sensible posts with evidence for a change.

Because its new and unknown, rather over react than react to late and be fucked.

Gov is screwed no matter what they do, damned if they do damned if they don't!

@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?

Err, what? Tons of people (including medical officials from various nations) described vaccines as a ticket out of the mess caused by Covid. I agree with your second point - that most credible officials, medics and scientists were upfront about the risk of variants and no one sensible promised 100% effective vaccines.

But your first point is just wrong. Loads of people (including credible officials) have described vaccines as a "ticket out". Using that exact wording. If you google "vaccine ticket out of" you will see this.

@Hellotoallmyfans

To try and scare everyone into "behaving" so damages (ie hospital admissions) can be mitigated.

The scientist who discovered this variant has herself said, I believe, that it's a complete overreaction and cases/symptoms are very mild.

Plus it sells papers doesn't it?

She's not a scientist. She's a private GP who referred her patients, suffering from exhaustion, for sequencing once they tested positive for covid. The sample of patients she mentioned is around two dozen.

While this is encouraging news, let's not forget how biased the sample is here. Bad cases would not go to see their GP with vague symptoms, but likely straight to the hospital / emergency.

There's no panic.

We don't know Omicron is mild.

The Prime Minister dud say several times that vaccines are our ticket out of the pandemic.

And he's right. We can't get out without them.

But also - they can't do it on their own.

Additional measures were always going to be necessary except perhaps in summertime.

They don’t know but got it with both barrels for letting Delta take hold

Just remind yourself of all the MN posts at the time!

So this time they are being more cautious as it would appear far more transmissible than Delta, although possibilities milder, but is that in those vaccinated or not vaccinated? This time we are heading for winter, cases are still high, never mind flu, and they have to protect the NHS whilst balancing the fact businesses have to stay open

We are simply being asked to wear masks again at the moment, so I don’t see that as any great issue.

A lot of this is press headlines and shit stirring let’s just see what happens instead of getting knickers in a twist

@Iggly

We are approaching winter and the NHS is already on its knees. It cannot take another surge so that’s why they’re trying to minimise the spread “trying”…

It won’t take many serious cases to make the nhs topple over. This isn’t about the general population, but those who will need ICU care when there’s little to go around.

Think about it - if it was just a standard virus that did not cause any intensive care treatment then we wouldn’t have this need for measures.

This

Plus I think that it's not just the serious cases needing ICU, it is the knock on effect throughout the NHS.

Every time somebody uses resources from the NHS for a disease they could have avoided catching by following some fairly simple guidelines, it means that somebody with a non-covid condition has to wait that bit longer.

And the stress that NHS staff are being put under means that more and more are leaving, meaning fewer resources and longer waiting times for everybody.

Omicron sounds like a robot.

so has the original covid now burnt out? just delta,,and now omricon existing?

I don't know perhaps the op is a respected virologist in which case we should listen to their expertise otherwise we should be listening to the expert scientists who seem to be suggesting this is cause for concern.

There isn't panic they are introducing precautions because it's too early to say how transmissible it is. They could do nothing which could be disastrous, Cripple an already depleted NHS and threaten christmas but they wouldnt know until its too late.
The government are calamitous and have acted too slowly in almost every scenario in this pandemic now that they may actually be learning from their mistakes people aren't happy with that either
Cant win

They only do it so folk can argue on public message forums because hey what else would anyone do with their time.

So over it. The disruption is extraordinary

Tons of people (including medical officials from various nations) described vaccines as a ticket out of the mess caused by Covid.

I think many people have misinterpreted that as COVID no longer being a serious issue or even that it will be the end of COVID rather than vaccination will mitigate the effects of COVID and case numbers will stabilise and the disease will be endemic (at a constant level) rather than a pandemic.

[quote AcceptableFox]The fact many countries have closed their borders, is quite worrying.

I just saw this on the data thread about hospitalisations tripling...

<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1465037954783621131" target="_blank">[[http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1465037954783621131]][/quote]

1. thats Eric 'scream about all the scary stuff and don't put it into context'
2. lots of hospitalisations doesn't mean its not mild. It just means more people are going to hospital. Causation v correlation people
3. more people going to hospital means more people are probably infected all at the same time. Which is likely what you would see in a variant which was more transmissable. You could just have cases going up rapidly. It still could mean its milder, and the hospitalisation rate is lower. Its just you have more cases.
4. this is a largely unvaccinated population which may make a difference.
5. We have seem huge spikes elsewhere with delta in recent weeks. There is nothing to say this isn't just another delta spike rather than a new omicron spike yet.

Calm down.

We don't know enough to draw conclusions yet.

Bring on endemic