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

(temporarily)

They said from the start vaccines will help to reduce spread and reduce hospitalisations and deaths. That’s how vaccinations work.

And that has happened! In fact it’s one of the most effective vaccination programmes in history. It’s actually extraordinarily effective at reducing hospitalisation and death rates. The vaccines have achieved levels of efficacy beyond what anyone actually hoped for compared to most conventional vaccines.

Trying to spin that as “we were promised if we had a vaccine life would be back to normal in spring 2021” is the disingenuous nonsense. Not one single government or scientific source ever promised that vaccines would be a golden ticket to make it all disappear. It took decades to eradicate smallpox, and that was one of the most stable and slowest-mutating viruses known to science.

@MaxNormal

foxgoosefinch a while ago I was getting so wound up posting in the covid section that I came away for a good long while. Possibly you should consider doing likewise, the way you're now speaking to other posters does not suggest someone in a good place and it actually makes the threads quite jarring to read.

Are you suggesting that we all have to humour and indulge outright nonsense or there’s a problem with us? Be kind and polite to outright misinformers and bad faith actors coming out with the most ludicrous conspiracist idiocy? I’ll leave you to the tinfoilhatters in that case.

@Thefartingsofaofdenmarkstreet

And I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that 'no one ever said that vaccines were our way out of this'. How do you think that they managed to get such an enormous uptake in the population, that was totally the narrative!

The WHO has always said Vaccine Plus (masks, etc) until infection rates are down and the majority are vaccinated. Worldwide.

Vaccines aren't a 100% magic bullet - but they will be (a very big) part of getting us out of this.

The problem is too many unvaccinated - which, if there are no other mitigations, encourages mutations.

Research has strongly indicated that vaccines reduce the risk of transmission. Not eliminate, but reduce. Which is good. Very good.

We need to get boostered, and we need to vaccinate the rest of the world.

Temporary vaccine patent waiver would help but donations too.

Well tbf the reality is between what @foxgoosefinch and @tv2021 said.

It has always been clear that vaccines would never be able to completely stop anyone to get the illness. The aim has always been to reduce hospitalisations and deaths.
But the wording used, such only mild illnesses, was confusing. Mild illness is a bit a of a cold to most people. What researchers meant was you might have been in bed for two weeks but you didn’t end up in hospital.
Plus newspapers did spin things to make it look better so you end up with people believing that the vaccine was supposed to stop you from getting Covid completely.
It’s not surprising because that’s exactly what most people expect a vaccine to do let’s say for TB or tetanus etc…

Now that we have a vaccine more like the flu which isnt 100%, it feels like we have been cheated.

But they still work. They still protect you from hospitalisation and death.

And vaccines have already made a big difference.

Currently the majority of ICU patients are the unvaccinated.

@tv2021

Hahaha

I expected that reaction to my post on Mumsnet.

Only on mumsnet people are very happy to keep getting jabs and boosters that don't work.

In real life many people were coerced into getting 2 jabs so they could travel. But they were lied to. They still had to do tests just like unjabbed. So many didn't go anywhere. Now they don't want any boosters as many had Covid despite the "amazing" vaccine.

It is difficult to admit you were lied to. Keep believing the propaganda if you choose. But the truth is out that jabs are not only useless but have nasty side effects.

So the massive weight of data that shows that vaccines do work and the fact that in the UK we have basically enjoyed 5-6 months of little or no restrictions has completely passed you by, has it?

Jesus wept.

As for omicron is a mild illness…..

We actually have no data to say that yet. What we have is a genome sequencing that tells us it is likely to be worse than delta. But no RL facts and figures.

The often quoted ‘it’s a mild virus’ is an extracted quote, taken out of context from a South African doctor who did NOT say the virus was a mild version of Covid….

@foxgoosefinch

From your link *@HesterShaw1*:

“Prof Peter Horby, from the University of Oxford, said: "This news made me smile from ear to ear. "It is a relief... there is a long long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment."

How do you translate “there is a long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference” to “back to normal life in spring 2021”?

Honestly, I’m hiding these threads because the level of scientific ignorance and stupidity is utterly mindboggling.

It is terrifying, these posters can presumably vote and have children, frightening.

But the truth is out that jabs are not only useless but have nasty side effects

Could you provide links to the research that forms the basis of this conclusion @tv2021? Or are you just flinging around baseless assertions?

@tv2021

It is a scam to make people get a booster and to stop people travelling.

Also to keep the fear going so that people cannot relax.

They can now come up with any story without any proof or evidence and the journalists just keep saying "When will we go into lockdown?"

Don't believe the media and politicians

Ok, I’ll bite… can you explain WHY governments worldwide would want people to a. Take a booster (apart from the obvious reason that they make covid less dangerous), b. Not travel and c. Not relax?

What is in it for them? How did every government around the world agree with whatever this scheme is?

MaxNormal

Thank goodness for the voice of reason as shown by foxgoosefinch. if she starts to lose patience who can blame her ?

Matt Hancock said several times on TV: 'the vaccine is the way out'

New World Order/The Great Reset/Bill Gates/Lizards is my guessBandito. But I think you may be told to do your own research.

@tv2021 Amazing that folk who will trust the science that keeps a plane in the air or regime of (scientifically proven) chemicals to cure a loved one of cancer, will dismiss as a Hoax or Conspiracy an illness which has ended at least 5m lives around the world.

We simply do not know if this new variant is relatively mild, whether it exist along side Delta or become the prevalent virus.

I don't agree with the travel restrictions, for countries like South Africa, this will have a huge economic hit, will other countries be quite so keen to come fwd next time?

Perhaps the G7 can help compensate them?

And SA has a much younger population than us

@tv2021

Hahaha

I expected that reaction to my post on Mumsnet.

Only on mumsnet people are very happy to keep getting jabs and boosters that don't work.

In real life many people were coerced into getting 2 jabs so they could travel. But they were lied to. They still had to do tests just like unjabbed. So many didn't go anywhere. Now they don't want any boosters as many had Covid despite the "amazing" vaccine.

It is difficult to admit you were lied to. Keep believing the propaganda if you choose. But the truth is out that jabs are not only useless but have nasty side effects.

But… but… the vaccines are why our death rates are LOWER now than they were before the vaccine was rolled out!!!!

Why do you think they don’t work???

Are you really thick or a troll?

By the way, I'm not siding with the conspiracy theorist on this thread but the statement

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

Is not true. The Health Secretary at the time said that exact thing.

@tv2021

Hahaha

I expected that reaction to my post on Mumsnet.

Only on mumsnet people are very happy to keep getting jabs and boosters that don't work.

In real life many people were coerced into getting 2 jabs so they could travel. But they were lied to. They still had to do tests just like unjabbed. So many didn't go anywhere. Now they don't want any boosters as many had Covid despite the "amazing" vaccine.

It is difficult to admit you were lied to. Keep believing the propaganda if you choose. But the truth is out that jabs are not only useless but have nasty side effects.

Also, the moon landing was a fake., Elvis is still alive and Kennedy was murdered by the Republicans/CIA/Russians, innit.

Because they don’t know yet and they are being cautious.

@Lostinacloud

Another thing that annoys me is the media’s happiness to announce that South Africa has a much lower aged population which may explain why nobody has been hospitalised and their death rate has remained tiny for months and yet at the same time all over 12’s are supposed to get more doses.

because they generally get it mildly but they do get it. The more people who get it even mildly, the more chance of passing it on and the more chance of mutation. How many more times?

Plus newspapers did spin things to make it look better so you end up with people believing that the vaccine was supposed to stop you from getting Covid completely.
It’s not surprising because that’s exactly what most people expect a vaccine to do let’s say for TB or tetanus etc…

Except no reputable source has ever said that.

If people believed that vaccination for a coronaVIRUS would be like tetanus or TB then they are the ones who are ill-informed and have made that up in their own minds. Both of those illnesses are bacterial infections for large, well known stable bacteria. Bacteria and viruses are not the same thing. If people don’t understand the science or don’t plate to find out, I’m not sure this can ultimately be blamed on anyone else.

From the start one of the reasons for the challenge of vaccination is that coronaVIRUSES are small, fast-mutating viruses with a structure that makes it difficult for the immune system to detect their protein capsids. The vaccines are pretty amazing technology in their own right. No matter. But it is categorically untrue that reputable sources were claiming vaccinations would be sone kind of magic bullet. If people thought that, then they might need to do more to educate themselves about viruses and vaccines and how they work.

@Thefartingsofaofdenmarkstreet

Matt Hancock said several times on TV: 'the vaccine is the way out'

and it is but its not an instant fix and no one ever said it was

*don’t care to find out