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

[Thewiseoneincognito]

Continuation of the last thread

Chicago showed the power of unions over prioritising keeping dc safe. Poor children.

I don’t know who I’ll vote for yet. I don’t have to say to anyone here I don’t think.

I’ll vote on policies as I always do. Not wedded to Cons or Labour, decide at each election.

Same here, floating voter.

I don't think you can extrapolate from one instance of what is going on in Chicago though, that's pretty irrelevant to here.

What IS relevant is that the Government refused to follow the recommendations of their own catch up Tsar.

Poor children indeed.

Who knows the demands for SD were always problematic.

Any situation where 2m or even less had to be kept meant vast majority of dc closed out of school.

Iirc this was on the list.

@JanglyBeads

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.

I think the first death now was actually before even our first case was recorded - on the 30th January. Hardly any testing was done at that point.

I agree there will be deaths but I don't think it will be such a big gap. That said we may register it as a COVID death but not go down as Omicron

And it goes on ... a bit worrying though "stealth variant of Omicron not identifiable with PCR".

Chicago is a VERY specific context. Those children in those particular schools face hugely challenging circumstances. It is also one of the most politicised school contexts in the US so I'd check the double of any apparently objective reporting.

FWIW all my family is in different areas of the US and ,on the whole, have accepted school closures, flexible school, mask wearing and distance learning with no angst at all. They have zero anxiety about testing, public exams etc so this may be connected.

Tigerblue I agree, not what I wanted to read. Hopefully it'll be less transmissible.

We really can't go through another lockdown for a number of reasons, but beginning to think we'll definitely need more restrictions.

My dc had 12 weeks of school for the year with SD in place it was easy to see numbers could reduce this drastically. One day a week in class given KW numbers.

We’d be in a much worse place now if so. Already harm is being relayed.

Even if US people have no angst (not sure about this generally) we would have had greater impact if it had gone ahead.

I have become a little obsessed with trying to work out which areas are getting the 30%-35% s gene drop out sequencing in the general population pcr tests. If you aren't in that 30-35% and have had a positive recently then it is possible you had/have omicron but would never know right?

Two dc at home isolating after testing positive, these dc had 'resisted' delta many times from friends etc in the last few months. Their symptoms fit more with the omicron ones I've read (although I know that's very patchy). Clutching at straws to make me feel better as isolating this particular week has been crap for many reasons mainly but also interested in the data.

We would assume current omicron numbers were a third of what was really happening at this point right?

The Guardian report doesn't say the 'stealth variety' is not identifiable as Covid, just that it's not immediately recognisable as Omicron.

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

That's not a "trial" Jangly
It's a pre-post design
There's no concurrent comparator place in the experiment
They didn't culture the virus, they only detected what could have been deactivated RNA
There's no outcomes in people

It's people who matter, things that happen to people, people who did or didn't get sick

twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1468310548609744904

underparmummy - I'm very interested in this aspect and why there's not more detail available .

I've found this ,which I'm not sure I completely understand butI think it and figure 8 shows the distribution of labs able to detect the S drop out

The proportion of England specimens tested in the lighthouse laboratories using the assay which produces the S gene target failure, and which report to UKHSA surveillance systems, has been relatively constant over time at 30 to 35% (Figure 8). This however varies by geography, with *lower coverage since July 2021 in local authorities in the South West of England.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1038404/Technical_Briefing_30.pdf

twitter.com/bealelab/status/1468323168892895238?s=21

First neutralisation data - it's not great

@justaskingagain

https://twitter.com/bealelab/status/1468323168892895238?s=21

First neutralisation data - it's not great

It's not going to be is it?

With that mutation profile.

We know it's worse than Delta on at least two fronts. It's just a case of how much worse.

@justaskingagain

https://twitter.com/bealelab/status/1468323168892895238?s=21

First neutralisation data - it's not great

It's "better than expected overall"!

twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1468339178421342212

Balloux:

"Those results suggests that a large proportion of the population globally is at risk of (re-)infection by the omicron variant over the coming months.

The silver lining is that the far milder omicron symptoms observed to date in SA point to immunisation retaining its efficacy against severe disease through non-neutralising antibodies and cellular immunity (T-cells) and/or intrinsically lower virulence of the omicron variant.

This does not imply boosters are useless. First we're still dealing with a delta variant epidemic, which right now remains a bigger issue, and second, boosters also have a major positive effect of cellular immunity (T-cells), which likely retains its efficacy against disease."

twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1468493362688925700

[quote peridito]underparmummy - I'm very interested in this aspect and why there's not more detail available .

I've found this ,which I'm not sure I completely understand butI think it and figure 8 shows the distribution of labs able to detect the S drop out

The proportion of England specimens tested in the lighthouse laboratories using the assay which produces the S gene target failure, and which report to UKHSA surveillance systems, has been relatively constant over time at 30 to 35% (Figure 8). This however varies by geography, with *lower coverage since July 2021 in local authorities in the South West of England.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1038404/Technical_Briefing_30.pdf[/quote]
Loving that London has a particularly low rate...

Given where most cases are popping up....

Looks like we're on to Plan B restrictions with a press conference this afternoon to announce according to lots of people on Twitter.

How much of that is because it's the right time, and how much is to distract from 'The Party' I'm not sure...

RTB - so much interesting ( I think ! ) data in this

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1038404/Technical_Briefing_30.pdf

but I don't understand it ,so tantalising .

All I can gather ( and no doubt I'm wrong ) is that we have few labs (4 ? )testing for total S dropout so much depends on who sends tests where ...

@TokyoSushi

Looks like we're on to Plan B restrictions with a press conference this afternoon to announce according to lots of people on Twitter.

How much of that is because it's the right time, and how much is to distract from 'The Party' I'm not sure...

I think it couldn't be worse timing as far as the government is concerned. Non covid news is what they need to distract from their party. Trying to tell people to cancel their work Christmas parties this year is not going to be easy for them! So I think they think that plan b is probably needed quite badly

I think the opposite actually @Firefliess this is exactly timed to try and put this front and centre on the media and news and try and to push the party off.

Listening to Boris Johnson banging on about the vaccines and the boosters, you would believe he had invented and manufactured them on his own.
Listen to Dame Sarah Gilbert instead , she gives a much more measured insight into vaccine processes and regulations and the time and effort that was needed by so many to find a suitable one for distribution. Not to mention the begging for money that had to happen too.
The real workers , not some idiotic civil servants who thought that rules were only for other people.

@Quartz2208

I think the opposite actually *@Firefliess* this is exactly timed to try and put this front and centre on the media and news and try and to push the party off.

I agree. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I suspect new restrictions have been in the offing for a few days and today seemed like a good day to start leaking it to the press. The looming threat of impending restrictions near Christmas is going to occupy people's thoughts a lot more than the Christmas party debacle.

I hate how everything seems to be bloody leaked. I try not to but it's hard not to spend time speculating when you get wind that's something in the offing. Either do the public the courtesy of telling them what's going on officially or keep schtum, it's very stressful!

Well if plan B was an effort to distract from last year's Downing Street party, it's not proving terribly successful do far...