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

[Thewiseoneincognito]

Continuation of the last thread

@MaxNormal

By Boris Johnson during yesterday's presser. He said that there now needs to be a discussion about it.

Javid has poured cold water on the idea this morning. Scientists largely seem against it on the grounds of it being counter productive atm. Not heard serious suggestions of it from opposition parties yet.

Andrew Lilico @andrewlilico
Current working hypothesis.
a) Pretty much everyone whose only immunity is one previous infection that wasn't v recent is going to get omicron in a v short time indeed.
b) Those with hybrid or recent 3-dose immunity are going to be pretty well protected
c) 2-dosers in btwn

Not claiming any certainty at all to this scenario. Just saying it's my current working hypothesis. Cld mean a gargantuan wave of cases at a low hospitalisations rate. Whether it's so low that even the huge wave won't mean a problematic spike in hospitalisations I don't know yet.

James Ward@jamesward73
this seems pretty fair from @andrew_lilico (including the second tweet). now odds-on for a big wave of omicron cases but too early to know how severe it will be. range of plausible uncertainty includes some very nasty scenarios as well as some tolerable ones.

This is where i am.

It frustrates me. DH is 39 and 6 months. He is at 6 months post vaccine on 21st December. He cannot get a booster booked yet. It worries me seeing the SA age profiles and having a 7 year old.

I think this is going to be an issue. A big one. Still no word on when its going to roll out to his age group.

From the spectator:

The starting point in the Covid rules should be section 73 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. This part of the Act states that the Covid regulations, at all times, never applied to Crown Land (which includes No. 10). This only changed if No. 10 made a written agreement to be voluntarily bound – and no one thinks they did. So the regulations almost certainly never applied to No. 10 anyway.

Why would this be? The reason is simple: in the 1980s, lawmakers decided that it would be better to allow the government to function during any future national pandemic without having to worry about being caught up in quarantine regulations. The thinking was that by making the government effectively exempt in law, the government could continue to function.

In addition to the 1984 Act, there were also specific regulations that applied at the time of the alleged party: the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers) (England) Regulations 2020. According to these rules, gatherings were allowed in all public buildings, or parts of them ‘operated by a business, a charitable, benevolent or philanthropic institution or a public body.’ There had to be a risk assessment but a gathering was legal for whole swathes of people.

So it seems likely that whatever happened in Downing Street was legal.

It doesn't help the optics here though does it?

@RedToothBrush I appreciate that it's - hopefully - not a likely scenario but the point is Johnson went there. And a lot of unlikely things have come to pass which have started by someone just putting an idea out there.
Plus they are going there in several European countries.

Also cold water was repeatedly poured on the idea of vaccine passports, by I think Zahawi? And look where we are.

[quote MaxNormal]@RedToothBrush I appreciate that it's - hopefully - not a likely scenario but the point is Johnson went there. And a lot of unlikely things have come to pass which have started by someone just putting an idea out there.
Plus they are going there in several European countries.

Also cold water was repeatedly poured on the idea of vaccine passports, by I think Zahawi? And look where we are.[/quote]
Johnson suggested we have a national conversation about it. Not that he supported the idea.

Big difference.

The thing here is that many older (tory supporting) people are much more open to the idea. These are people who have almost all been double vaccinated though. Its playing to the gallery.

Its people in their 30s and 40s who perhaps are more of an issue. And Johnson still needs votes in this age group. And many of them who have had a vaccine and are due and want boosters cant get them. This is significant.

I am not liking the SA numbers.

I think talk of a national conversation is more of putting a show on rather than taking it seriously.

My suspicion is if this goes crazy, then mood will shift, but im not sure by how much and possibly not quickly enough to make a difference anyway.

We can't get vaccinations into people who want them atm. Talking about mandatory vaccinations distracts away from that. For now

My gut is more that its a whopping dead cat.

And as i say, tory backbenchers are unlikely to support the idea and actually i think some Labour MPs might get cold feet at the idea too.

I actually think there possibly more of a public mood to direct triage in a crisis to depriortise unvaccinated adults as their chances of survival are significantly lower. Whether this will become official policy or something that simply arises and makes the papers (nudge theory in action) will be interesting.

[quote MaxNormal]@RedToothBrush I appreciate that it's - hopefully - not a likely scenario but the point is Johnson went there. And a lot of unlikely things have come to pass which have started by someone just putting an idea out there.
Plus they are going there in several European countries.

Also cold water was repeatedly poured on the idea of vaccine passports, by I think Zahawi? And look where we are.[/quote]
Zahawi was reflecting the party line. I can't say its actually shifted. There is a cabinet split and a back bench rebellion looming.

Gut feeling: if Johnson went for mandatory vaccination the 1922 committee would have him.

It might yet happen already.

Im watching carefully.

Trouble is, a 'national conversation' I feel will end up with the majority of people not wanting further restrictions/pressure on the NHS that they see as being caused by people who remain unvaccinated. I can see many people coming around to the idea of mandatory jabs if we have a bad winter, even if they are against the idea now. However it'll cause a lot of arguments and be incredibly divisive, as if we haven't already been through enough.

I think the more countries introduce a mandate, the more likely the UK is to follow suit. The punishment for not taking a vaccine is where the differences lie - can't see the UK putting the unvaxxed into prison as we already have prisons that are too full. I'd say fines are the most likely penalty in the UK.

Political pics @politicalpics
Boris big problem about parties is his wife, she was involved in CCHQ as a young PR with a large group of young party workers inside CCHQ some of who now work in No10 with the power of being a friend of Carrie, young party people with power, dangerous cocktail indeed.

No one important outside no10 likes Carrie. She's made a few too many enemies.

Keep watching this. Its important.

@CrunchyCarrot

Trouble is, a 'national conversation' I feel will end up with the majority of people not wanting further restrictions/pressure on the NHS that they see as being caused by people who remain unvaccinated. I can see many people coming around to the idea of mandatory jabs if we have a bad winter, even if they are against the idea now. However it'll cause a lot of arguments and be incredibly divisive, as if we haven't already been through enough.

I think the more countries introduce a mandate, the more likely the UK is to follow suit. The punishment for not taking a vaccine is where the differences lie - can't see the UK putting the unvaxxed into prison as we already have prisons that are too full. I'd say fines are the most likely penalty in the UK.

Many of the unvaccinated may well be dead by the time the UK come round to the idea.

The next 6 weeks if they go badly are going to go badly.

Many of the unvaccinated may well be dead by the time the UK come round to the idea.

The next 6 weeks if they go badly are going to go badly.

A cheerful thought to start today! You're probably right, though. :(

I doubt it’s a goer if even Labour won’t support it

I think any kind of mandatory vaccination ought to focus on the old, and for their own protection primarily. The small number of older people who're unvaccinated are in deep trouble with Omicron - they've been kept safe so far by very high vaccination rates among their peers, but Omicron is likely to mean a lot of vaccinated people still catch and transmit covid, so the unvaccinated will catch it, and some could get very ill. Around 1m unvaccinated 60+ people - if 20% of them need hospital care, that's 200,000 people. Plus at least some of the vaccinated, unlucky people needing care at the same time. Hospitals currently managing with around 700 admissions a day.

For younger people I can't see the point - most will have had covid already, and one shot will probably not be enough to stop them catching and spreading Omicron (they'd need 3 for that, which would take 5 months with our current rules) So much better to focus on getting boosters into the willing

Many of the unvaccinated may well be dead by the time the UK come round to the idea

I'm surprised to see you make such a scare-mongering statement. You're well informed, you know the approximate IFR of covid, and that that of omicron is likely lower, and that vaccine uptake has been much higher in the older, more at risk age groups.

To suggest that large swathes of the unvaccinated will be killed by covid is as irresponsible as it is inaccurate.

Unless I have misunderstood and you're implying that it's so unlikely that they'll be dead of old age. In which case I apologise and retract my statement.

@MaxNormal

Many of the unvaccinated may well be dead by the time the UK come round to the idea

I'm surprised to see you make such a scare-mongering statement. You're well informed, you know the approximate IFR of covid, and that that of omicron is likely lower, and that vaccine uptake has been much higher in the older, more at risk age groups.

To suggest that large swathes of the unvaccinated will be killed by covid is as irresponsible as it is inaccurate.

Its not inaccurate to say you are much more likely to die of covid if you are unvaccinated.

If is not inaccurate to say that if you are unvaccinated you are more likely to end up in ICU.

If is not inaccurate to say that if you are unvacinated you are more likely to end up in hospital.

Now. If the shit hits the fan and everyonr gets omicron the same fortnight we go into a triage situation. And people probably wont get ambulances and hospital beds.

What happens to those people?

The point is that omicron is likely to overwhelm hospitals. When hospitals are overwhelmed, people who otherwise wouldn't die because they needed minor medical intervention are much more likely to die. The mortality rate goes up.

The really key bit here is the numbers for omicron are not favourable and point to a likely scenario of hospitals being overwhelmed.

Thats entirely the point of why so many scientists are calling for interventions now.

Is it scaremongering to point out the NHS already has capacity issues and that they are worst in January and February normally? And we have Omicron isolation laws of health care staff to factor in.

Give me some reputable data and information which is giving a projection which is saying something completely different at this stage.

Cos I'm finding it hard to find atm.

Yes boosters are good. But the population is older, and its fatter, and less genetically protected and not everyone can get a booster or a second does and omicrons early data isn't so good for younger groups either.

Im trying to be optimistic on this, but we still have a bunch of concerns that really aren't getting resolved and dismissed as no longer issues. The longer that goes on, the more concerned we should all be getting...

Sorry, I'm coming late to this, but have we any clear information about how dangerous this new variant is yet?
I had a terrible cold that went on for 3 weeks last month, and spread to the rest of the family. I'm double vaccinated plus booster, and, when I did LFT they were negative. This seems to have been going around and I'm thinking that perhaps it was the new variant.

@MaMaLa321

Sorry, I'm coming late to this, but have we any clear information about how dangerous this new variant is yet? I had a terrible cold that went on for 3 weeks last month, and spread to the rest of the family. I'm double vaccinated plus booster, and, when I did LFT they were negative. This seems to have been going around and I'm thinking that perhaps it was the new variant.

Nope. The flu of death has also been going around. Its not covid.

@RedToothBrush

That doesn't sound scaremongering, that sounds broadly realistic.

Although the projected hospitalisations of 1k/day are less than we have seen before in the UK?

Redtoothbrush you said "many of" the unvaccinated will likely be died though. Ie implying a sizable percentage of them.

I hear your concerns re impact on the health care system but there is nothing in the data about omicron that suggests it will kill a sizeable percentage of anyone, unvaccinated or not.

As ever, its a small percentage of a large number, and that is what causes the problem.

I think any kind of mandatory vaccination ought to focus on the old, and for their own protection primarily. The small number of older people who're unvaccinated are in deep trouble with Omicron - they've been kept safe so far by very high vaccination rates among their peers, but Omicron is likely to mean a lot of vaccinated people still catch and transmit covid, so the unvaccinated will catch it, and some could get very ill. Around 1m unvaccinated 60+ people - if 20% of them need hospital care, that's 200,000 people. Plus at least some of the vaccinated, unlucky people needing care at the same time. Hospitals currently managing with around 700 admissions a day.

For younger people I can't see the point - most will have had covid already, and one shot will probably not be enough to stop them catching and spreading Omicron (they'd need 3 for that, which would take 5 months with our current rules) So much better to focus on getting boosters into the willing

Great post Firefliss .

January last year hit a peak of 4,500.

Original was around 3k.

Delta has been a continuous 700-900.

This one is due to be around 2k isnt it.

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

is the SA data and I think there is a line between realistic, scaremongering and catastrophising that we all need to be careful with.

Omicron isolation has gone now though hasnt it - to 10 day LFT?

Also tbh im concerned about things that are within human control. Like our PM mooting the possibility that autonomy of our bodies might no longer rest in our hands.

Even the greatest health system would buckle if everyone fell very sick simultaneously, as medical staff etc would also be unable to work. I expect there is a master plan for this, but probably we don’t want to know!

Cousin took part in a disaster simulation a few years ago. He had to put tags on people to indicate priority. I wonder where these tags are stored?!

Omicron isolation has gone now though hasnt it - to 10 day LFT?

yes it's gone ,with the speed of spread I guess the nation would grind to a standstill with the nos that would have been isolating .

Maybe the other measures will spread things out a bit (flatten the curve? ) but personally I think "what's the point" ,we'll all be exposed .

What is in the data though to remotely show that everyone would fall sick simultaneously with this though? I cannot see anything that Omicron would cause this.

Although I could in theory see that somethings can

@peridito

Omicron isolation has gone now though hasnt it - to 10 day LFT?

yes it's gone ,with the speed of spread I guess the nation would grind to a standstill with the nos that would have been isolating .

Maybe the other measures will spread things out a bit (flatten the curve? ) but personally I think "what's the point" ,we'll all be exposed .

I did miss this. Wow big step

It will be fast some have said by Christmas iirc