Omicron vs Delta theory

[CraftyGin]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned...

Omicron is turning out to be much more virulent than Delta, but so far, it doesn't seem as severe.

Is it possible that Omicron could displace Delta over the coming months, and basically bring an end to the pandemic?

It's possible but we don't know yet. It will be a few weeks before it's worked it's way through the population and we see whether it's effects are less, particularly as older people get it (lots of those affected so far are younger).

It will replace Delta
Jury is out over whether it’s less severe, but let’s hope so!

Yes, it could becone the dominant strain.

No, it's not possible to say what ther means for future disease patterns

Also we don't know what sort of disease it will produce (worse, similar, not so bad) so I think a precautionary approach is the right one until it is known. But even milder, there will still be people who get it lt enough to are hospital. Even if that remains at a very low proportion (under 2%) if the number of cases shoots up then we could still,end up with numbers that become a problem for health services.

And then of course we don't know what rho, sigma and tau will be like (I'm assuming that pi is a name that will be skipped)

Yes it is possible. I'm hoping for it. I saw that there is a shorter time between infection and symptoms which is good.

@CraftyGin

Apologies if this has already been mentioned...

Omicron is turning out to be much more virulent than Delta, but so far, it doesn't seem as severe.

Is it possible that Omicron could displace Delta over the coming months, and basically bring an end to the pandemic?

More infectious than delta, not more virulent.

Virulent:

adjective
1 1. 
(of a disease or poison) extremely severe or harmful in its effects."a virulent strain of influenza"

It's not more virulent (apparently). It would appear to be more transmissible, perhaps.

This is the usual trajectory of viral evolution

I sincerely hope that is the case and Omicron turns out to be ‘common cold’ type symptoms for everyone or as close to everyone as possible. I’m concerned about the reports of more children being in hospital in SA and watching that closely.

Spanish flu continued until 1920 by which time it was (memory from something I read) milder -

Will the usual suspects in the NHS, Sage etc eat a bit of humble pie if it turns out their claims of impending Armageddon a couple of weeks ago were wrong?
I wont hold my breath.

Pp got re infectious not virulent - hopefully

But yes I’ve heard scientists say dominant in a few weeks

My understanding is we don't yet know whether Omicron is more or less virulent than Delta because there's not enough reliable data yet.

It's certainly possible OP. The early indications do seem to suggest it's milder. I guess we'll see.

Yes, that is essentially how pandemics 'end'. The virus doesn't want to kill it's host, most become milder over time and then circulate in milder (but always changing) variants forever.

@Scottishgirl85

Yes, that is essentially how pandemics 'end'. The virus doesn't want to kill it's host, most become milder over time and then circulate in milder (but always changing) variants forever.

This virus doesn't 'care' whether it kills its host or how quickly. Because it is infectious before symptoms, so has already moved on before the onset of disease.

There's no particuiarly evolutionary pressure for it to change (either way, milder or more severe)

Yup! I started a thread about this yesterday. I'm so excited about this variant. Seriously! I hope it's the beginning of the end. And with that an end to all this vaccine nonsense - the passports, exclusions of groups, isolating etc. As long as it doesn't put people in the hospital or have lasting health conditions. They've been saying it's vaccine resistant, so hopefully it continues to be mild.

I’d quite like the media to stop quoting how many cases there are of Omicron and how it’s ‘doubling in days’ to try and scare us. I’m not scared. It seems mild and I agree with this theory!