Omicron New Variant Thread 2 *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[Thewiseoneincognito]

Continuation of the last thread

My gig/festival criteria have been this year would the event be worth the risk of getting Covid. Steps certainly wouldn't have met that threshold.....

BNO newsroom @bnodesk
Minnesota man with Omicron met about 35 friends at Anime NYC and about half of them have since tested positive for COVID - WaPo
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/03/nyc-anime-covid-omicron/

There were 53,000 people at the event with people from all over the country there.

The man flew to NYC on 18th November and had symptoms on 22nd (so he probably got it in NYC which is what you would expect). Its also before it was identified in SA. So community spread going on this early in NYC. The event required proof of at least one vaccination for entry and masks were mandated (ancedotes suggest it was well adhered to).

It sounds like echoes of the Norwegian party which I believe is now up to 80 proven or suspected cases and includes people who weren't at the party but were at the same venue later that evening.

Btw all of these cases so far appear to be particularly mild.

Some big questions are going to emerge about just how widespread omicron is already very soon.

We know the earliest identified samples from SA are dated 8th November. By 22nd November you already had community transmission going on in NYC. In the UK you had a private event in Scotland on 20th responsible for cases and 6 cases linked to Steps on the 22nd. The earliest sample in the Netherlands was 19th November before the plane full of cases. Canada had a case identified in a traveller from Nigeria before the SA announcement.

UK scientists became aware of the new strain on November 23, after samples were uploaded to a coronavirus variant tracking website from South Africa, Hong Kong and then Botswana.

There has to be a lot of cases out there. Possibly going unnoticed. I mean, how many of these have slipped through testing protocols around the world for travel?

Thats a hell of a rate of transmission.

As Prof. Pagel says this is insane about the Norway superspreader event. And even if it is mild what are the implications of mass PCR positive tests on our health system and the requirement for self-isolation?

This is insane. All 120 people were vaccinated and had neg test before attendance. The index person had returned from SA just before but didn't test positive (with omicron) until couple days after party

twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1466891208081428486

[quote vera99]As Prof. Pagel says this is insane about the Norway superspreader event. And even if it is mild what are the implications of mass PCR positive tests on our health system and the requirement for self-isolation?

This is insane. All 120 people were vaccinated and had neg test before attendance. The index person had returned from SA just before but didn't test positive (with omicron) until couple days after party

twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1466891208081428486[/quote]
If so not many measures will stop this

Even with tests, vaccines, passes it will spread

The key for me is hospital admission data. If (a big if) Omicron is mild and outcompeting Delta, then it's the lesser of two evils, especially if there some vaccine resilience.

This sounds like a bloody stupid question, but do we have any inkling of a mortality rate, yet?

Not yet AFAIK. But there is severe illness, pressure on NHS, long covid. Just as the headliners

@vera99

My gig/festival criteria have been this year would the event be worth the risk of getting Covid. Steps certainly wouldn't have met that threshold.....

So we'll see you at The Wurzels on 21st December I hope?!?

It feels like "COVID worry" is being sort of institutionalized.
Nobody I know in the UK (or here) seems to be planning to do anything different to normal at the private level in terms of their own personal behavior; however, it seems like a lot of companies and big organizations are making changes like WFH plans, cancelling end-of-year events and so on.

I think corporate safetyism about viruses will be something that drags on for quite a while after the pandemic proper has wound down.

As for Omicron (or Omnicon as I keep calling it in confusion---sounds like the name of some kind of transcontinential telecommunications service provider), I'm watching the news updates avidly, but see no big reason to panic. Let's see.

So at the moment it looks like it must have been circulating around since early November right. And was in the US and the UK by the 18th November so by the time it started kicking off in South Africa it was too late.

So why it is just currently South Africa really taking off - how long was it bubbling about before it took off. And how is the rest of Southern Africa doing given it would have been there (it was called Botswana at the beginning) a similar time.

Has any of the non South Africa cases been hospitialised?

@manolantern

The fact you even know it is on makes me suspicious...

I take some comfort they will never grace the hallowed portals of Glastonbury.

metro.co.uk/2011/06/09/michael-eavis-angers-fans-after-saying-booking-wombles-for-glastonbury-was-a-mistake-39253/

If so not many measures will stop this

Even with tests, vaccines, passes it will spread

That has to be a huge huge concern. What restrictions can you use?

We know schools are going to be places of mass spread. Do you close them again? Could you do so without parents going mad and there being protests? And if you do close, for how long do you close? We need to keep eyes on this. Until we can develop, produce and roll out an omicron specific variant? Is that a viable or realistic strategy? Omicron is moving way faster than any prediction I can recall.

Politically another preemptive full scale lockdown looks difficult to sell at this stage even in the face of dreadful potential outcomes because timescales will be more obvious this time round. People will only get on board when things start to materialise as problems hit.

I wish I were coming up with different options on this, but practical realities of persuading people and the government being able to get things through parliament prior to that, make it look unlikely to happen. Thats not just 'pandering to populism'. Your key people here are a bunch of right ring Tories who have been rebelling already on reintroduction of measures. Even if Johnson relied on opposition you could still see a leadership challenge just as we head into a massive national crisis. If Johnson acts unilaterally without Parliament you open up another whole kettle of fish over the legality and enforceability of it. (See Brexit court cases). I'm not sure it would stick. It might buy some extra time if Johnson was convinced enough of a problem being a certainty, to reput things to parliament at a later date but that would still assume that mutineers would change their mind.

We need to have a cold hard realism over rock and hard place. We need to be honest rather than idealistic.

If its anything other than extremely mild and vaccine protection holding up, we could be in real trouble.

Good positives BT’s Quartz. It must have been already relatively widespread in SA?

Aaargh, meant to type ‘Good points Quartz’!

Even if it is milder how would the PCR testing regimen and the requirement to self-isolate impact on health care facilities in the storm of a huge intense wave ? They wouldn't. Difficult to see a route of out of this other than to weather the storm , vax to the max and exercise judgment based on your own risk analysis and appetite for risk. Personally I'm boosted next week relatively healthy have my own medicine cabinet of potions on call and will enjoy life as before. Looking like we are all going to meet the virus head on and soon unless we live in a cave in the back of beyond.

I agree with the very difficult situation we could be in.

I’m still waiting re the reality of data outside SA as different variables

But if it is problematic then most people do not want schools to close, MPs represent them, ditto businesses who will go under

@Quartz2208

So at the moment it looks like it must have been circulating around since early November right. And was in the US and the UK by the 18th November so by the time it started kicking off in South Africa it was too late.

So why it is just currently South Africa really taking off - how long was it bubbling about before it took off. And how is the rest of Southern Africa doing given it would have been there (it was called Botswana at the beginning) a similar time.

Has any of the non South Africa cases been hospitialised?

I’ve thought this too

With a line that steep and travel so frequent why are we not seeing similar elsewhere

Soon after index case in origin you’ll get cases seeded elsewhere

We know schools are going to be places of mass spread. Do you close them again? Could you do so without parents going mad and there being protests?

If the very early suggestions (and, at the moment, they are no more than that) that Omicron might produce serious disease in young children are true then you won't need to close them. Parents will do what they did back in March 20 and simply stop sending their kids in.

The NHS is already failing in places, it does not look good.

@vera99

Even if it is milder how would the PCR testing regimen and the requirement to self-isolate impact on health care facilities in the storm of a huge intense wave ? They wouldn't. Difficult to see a route of out of this other than to weather the storm , vax to the max and exercise judgment based on your own risk analysis and appetite for risk. Personally I'm boosted next week relatively healthy have my own medicine cabinet of potions on call and will enjoy life as before. Looking like we are all going to meet the virus head on and soon unless we live in a cave in the back of beyond.

Pretty much.

I don't see how you can protect hospital patients and care home residents in this situation.

If its lingering that much in restaurants, how do you stop it lingering in the A & E department or an ambulance? You can't put every new patient into a fully quarantined chamber. A & E already can't keep up.

@Motorina

We know schools are going to be places of mass spread. Do you close them again? Could you do so without parents going mad and there being protests?

If the very early suggestions (and, at the moment, they are no more than that) that Omicron might produce serious disease in young children are true then you won't need to close them. Parents will do what they did back in March 20 and simply stop sending their kids in.

Not everyone has the luxury of that option. That has implications for healthcare staff who have no child care options. Or people who cannot put food on the table.

Unless sanctioned by government you will find lots of people dont have the support to be able to withdraw kids from school.

DH and I could (and probably would) do it. But i know so many people struggled with it here last time and its an affluent area.

My BIL and SIL are both HCPs. They'd still be exposed to it and expose their kids in turn. Unless someone else in the family took them. So they'd be potentially living away from parents for some time. People would quit the NHS on mass rather than do that.

We would be looking at a potential collapse of critical skills and workers. Thats almost as scary as a high death rate because of the indirect effects.

@Motorina

We know schools are going to be places of mass spread. Do you close them again? Could you do so without parents going mad and there being protests?

If the very early suggestions (and, at the moment, they are no more than that) that Omicron might produce serious disease in young children are true then you won't need to close them. Parents will do what they did back in March 20 and simply stop sending their kids in.

It’s a different background of knowing the harms of closed schools to many.

It depends on the risk

@RedToothBrush agreed. We've seen over the past couple of weeks a significant change in how we manage covid. It's all geared at screening rather than isolation/PPE.

So staff who are contacts do two PCRs five days apart, and lateral flow daily, but still come in. Patients are screened and PPE levels are decided accordingly.

But the presumed spreader at the Norwegian event had tested negative before going and, one assumes, didn't have a headache, cough, or loss of taste or smell. So none of our screening would have identified them.

This is... not good.

Schools closing might well happen, policy or not. If it rips through a staff room the school will be posed. There won't be the staff. And if closed schools isn't an official policy there will be no government support or back up.

Be careful what you wish for.

What I find quite worrying as some of the PPs is the general attitude of the general public. The superspreader event in Norway - everyone was double vaxxed and had taken lateral flows beforehand. And yet it still has spread.

We are meant to be lateral flow testing in England before being “in crowded and enclosed spaces”. but I doubt many are. So many people just don’t seem to care (unlike people on this thread!)

Yes it is @RedToothBrush but in South Africa.

Botswana is now reporting that

www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/foreign-diplomats-travelling-from-europe-were-among-first-known-omicron-cases-botswana-president-1.5692519

Basically that it was detected in officials who travelled in on the 7th and out on the 11th. Its cases havent kicked off anywhere like that there.

Scotland by all accounts have had it 2 weeks - if it is as awful as the unmistakable data in South Africa is showing why has it not grown there.

It is looking to have a 2-3 day incubation rate so surely we would be by now?

The problem is the only data we have is in South Africa - given what we know it is odd that it is replicating in other places yet?