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

[Thewiseoneincognito]

Continuation of the last thread

[quote JanglyBeads]SAGE’s latest minutes agree with @PrincessNutNuts

twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1467923134787600396?s=21[/quote]
Oh well if SAGE agree then she must be right. I mean they haven’t gotten anything wrong with their predictions and doom mongering over the last year at all.

@JanglyBeads

Well, I suppose what the scientists say is ‘If we do not implement this and this, our models show X number of cases in Y months.’

And then govt have to decide what to do with those predictions.

Its not even that simple though.

If the government can not persuade enough MPs to vote for its proposals then it can not do what it wants either...

@Sunshinegirl82 -- wait for the RCT results before your school spends any money. Please.

if the filters work anywhere it will be in care homes.

I have large doubts, too!!

@MedSchoolRat

Thank you for that, really interesting! We won't be spending anything anytime soon, things are glacial when it comes to this sort of thing!

Medschoolrat apparently Wes Streeting said in the Commons today that the results won’t be available until October 2022 (contrary to what that August article says)!!

Yes RTB, of course you’re right, but that’s an issue of internal party politics and leadership.

@bumbleymummy, I think SAGE have got more right than most, put it that way. Please stop being rude about other posters too.

Rude? Hardly.

Excessive sarcasm is rude, at least to me it is.

@JanglyBeads

Medschoolrat apparently Wes Streeting said in the Commons today that the results won’t be available until October 2022 (contrary to what that August article says)!!

Yes RTB, of course you’re right, but that’s an issue of internal party politics and leadership.

And the public having an unfortunate habit of being difficult and not listening or doing what they are told.

Its an element of life, which i think thanks to the last few years, I call 'the wall of reality' and politics always collides with it, and you have to be realistic in terms of how much you can shift it.

I tend to weigh up these factors to work out how things will go and how realistic were alternative ideas. It takes me to a different place to idealism.

More important stuff (sort of):

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/06/patchy-monitoring-means-uk-omicron-numbers-unclear-say-officials?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

MedschoolRat what about the trials of filtration at Addenbrookes Hospital:

www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/air-filters-on-addenbrooke-s-wards-removed-nearly-all-trace-9227736/

Technical thread about a calculator to assess whether Omicron and future variants will resist vaccines/therapeutics:

twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1464005676842184705

I did not like the bit where they said "Seems dire" :(

Is omicron killing the vaccinated people in the same way the original virus was killing us before the vaccine existed?

'The Omicron variant has been detected in at least 38 countries but no deaths have yet been reported, the World Health Organization has said, amid warnings that it could damage the global economic recovery.'
(from The Guardian on Saturday)

There is at least one death reported in the sense of a first hand account by a hospital doctor, Professor Mathavhi, in SA - I posted a link to the interview yesterday morning upthread.

This was a previously healthy 15 year old. However only one report thus far.

The Guardian article is a bit out of date - Saturday. One death, in the whole world? I'm sorry for the one but it's not ringing any alarm bells for me - yet.

The thing about SAGE is that they only have to answer the question ‘how do we best control coronavirus?’ (Insert latest variant…)

Whereas the government had to answer the question ‘how do we best control coronavirus while maintaining a functioning economy, keeping schools open, and avoiding a tsunami of other mental and physical health problems ?’

@AlecTrevelyan006

The thing about SAGE is that they only have to answer the question ‘how do we best control coronavirus?’ (Insert latest variant…)

Whereas the government had to answer the question ‘how do we best control coronavirus while maintaining a functioning economy, keeping schools open, and avoiding a tsunami of other mental and physical health problems ?’

This is well put.

It’s fine to have SAGE and within their remit they do their job. But it’s a mistake to see it as the whole picture.

www.ft.com/content/d315be08-cda0-462b-85ec-811290ad488e

The alleged death of the healthy teenager isn't really making the news in SA either.

The government are concerned with a number of other questions as well

• will our donors like this?

• will Telegraph readers approve?

• how will this go down with the Home Counties voters?

-can we carry our backbenchers with us?

• can we distract from the latest scandal? and so on

Pragmatic considerations may always be a consideration in politics, but this Government was exceptionally venal and chaotic even before they found themselves in a pandemic.

Hear hear @herecomesthsun. If I had faith that this government were actually prioritising all aspects of the public’s well being, both in the short and medium term, I’d possibly be more comfortable with them seemingly ignoring scientific advice.

As has been pointed out on Twitter this morning, the first recorded UK case of covid 19 was on the 31 January. The first death not until the 5 March. There is always a substantial lag but we can predict that there will be deaths.

There will be huge public pressure on MPs that will inform votes. So when people talk about YouGov polls they usually miss that it’s not representative of public.

Any government will have pressure and I would not like to go through a pandemic with unions pulling the strings. Looking at Chicago, state schools out for 18 months and knowing the harms for dc coming out now.

SAGE and YouGov is really one side of it. The other is mounting pressure and this will be from public too.

There will always be push pull factors in both directions as control brings harms to other areas of society / other groups.

This harm will emerge more now and be long term in many ways

Well, I didn't like going through the last 18 months with Tory donors pulling the strings & contracts going to mates.

You vote your vote and you get your imperfect Government.

If the reference was to teaching unions, a lot of their stance was around trying to manage the situation more safely. From talking to actual teachers, they were very keen for schools to do face to face teaching; and if the situation last autumn had been better managed, more in school teaching might have been possible.