Why so much concern about Omicron?

[HJ40]

Don't get me wrong, I've been very concerned throughout about all things Covid, but people seem to be saying this makes you less ill, so why such a significant reaction?

Not trying to be goady, genuinely trying to learn as I can't work it out.

I think it's a case very much currently of "we don't know, but let's be careful".

If Omicron is more infectious, overwhelms delta but is much milder and effectively becomes like the common cold effecting almost no one severely then this is excellent news, and once it's overwhelmed delta, assuming no more mutations, we'll be on the way out.

BUT: We don't know yet.
It MAY evade the vaccines. But it may not.
It MAY be milder. But it may not.

It does seem to be more infectious, and potentially beating delta.

What we need to find out, and, to a certain extent only time can show, is.

1. Does it evade the vaccines, and if so how much? If it's 100% evasion (unlikely) then it's a different situation to even 50%. But so far the news looks like although there is some evasion, it's not enough to be seriously denting the effects of them, which is good.

1. How bad is it? One doctor saying among their young patients it seems mild means nothing. Covid, if you take the number of young patients that they had, the chances are you would be saying it's mild.

So we need to wait and see. We won't be able to tell that until a few weeks down the line.

If it's more infectious and has vaccine escape then even at the same rate of deaths as delta we could be looking at many unnecessary deaths.
But we can't know yet.

So there's a choice. We could say "we don't know but will take action assuming it may be worse". Hopefully try and keep it low numbers until we know the worst (or best). By then it could be too late for many people. And putting in restrictions is like an oil tanker trying to brake-it takes a long time and much harsher restrictions to bring numbers down some point in the future.
If it does turn out to be milder etc. then we can breath a sigh of relief and release the restrictions.

Or we can wait and see with "maybe this one won't be too bad." Then if it's milder we can pat ourselves on the back. But if it isn't, then we could, by the point we realise, be back to cancelling unnecessary medical procedures and having to put more restrictions in place while knowing that numbers, deaths and hospitalisations are going to continue to go up for some time before we see it slowly coming down.

The fact multiple countries are taking it seriously implies that there is something to take seriously here. However, maybe we'll be lucky and it'll be a false alarm. I'm sure everyone hopes so.

16 out of 19 “patients” in Botswana were asymptomatic

But some enjoy the doom, especially on here

@WouldBeGood

16 out of 19 “patients” in Botswana were asymptomatic

But some enjoy the doom, especially on here

My friends parents were in Botswana during the worst of Covid. They said, and I’m sure that there are shreds of truth in it, that all the elderly and sick that would have died from covid already have. So Omicron is passing through a younger and fitter population - which is why it’s seen as milder. Assuming, of course, it’s even being monitored properly. When my friend’s mum got covid last year her Botswanan hospital initially put it down as flu because they ran out of tests.

Let’s get back to doom. Apologies for optimism

@WouldBeGood

16 out of 19 “patients” in Botswana were asymptomatic

But some enjoy the doom, especially on here

And if you looked at 19 patients with the same age profile with delta, you would quite likely have a similar number asymptomatic. At the moment, we do not know if it is milder. Equally, we do not know if it is more severe.

What we do know is that it is extremely contagious and has sufficient mutations that we need to be on the ball to determine whether it is something we should be worried about.

That is not doom mongering. It is stating scientific facts. Claiming it is something we should all be panicking about is irresponsible. Claiming it is nothing to worry about is equally irresponsible.

🙄

About 2k out of 2 million people died in Botswana of covid.

@HJ40

Don't get me wrong, I've been very concerned throughout about all things Covid, but people seem to be saying this makes you less ill, so why such a significant reaction?

Not trying to be goady, genuinely trying to learn as I can't work it out.

There's no concrete evidence that omicron does make you less ill.

It's only existed a few weeks. It's very early days.

Covid is generally described as "a mild illness for most people" but that hasn't stopped it killing 5 million of us worldwide. 168,000 of them in this country.

The kind of Twitter accounts who said there was no evidence alpha was any worse than original covid, then said there was no evidence delta was any worse than alpha seem to be pushing the "mild" narrative.

@AlandAnna

I don’t know but we all need to consider how long we can continue panicking and stopping travel every time a new variant crops up (and it will….like flu)

I wouldn't consider this action as panicking. I think from learned experience our Government has now realised that economically it makes sense to be proactive in limiting transmission, even if it hopefully turns out not to be as disastrous as it could potentially be. They no longer view this as a waste financially as the alternative could be more damaging in the long run. I'm glad they have changed tack although the mixed messages are back with Johnson telling people to carry on with all plans whilst their medical adviser tells people to think twice about certain Christmas plans!

It all feels a bit like Feb / March 2020 again doesn't it ?
I know we have the vaccine now, but it still feels ominous at times. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it.
The bbc reported that the WHO will know more ' in days ' , but then it seemed to drop out the news again? The bbc news on the internet doesn't say anything either ?
I thought it would be two weeks for the data to come through ?

@AlandAnna

I don’t know but we all need to consider how long we can continue panicking and stopping travel every time a new variant crops up (and it will….like flu)

If you have one or two moths in the wardrobe you kill them and clean the tops they laid eggs on, and everything's ok again in a short space of time.

But if you've got dozens/hundreds/thousands arriving all the time you won't be able to keep up and you'll end up having to do something drastic or learn to live with holey larvae-encrusted clothes.