Good news re Omicron

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1468985784338366468?t=0RA5_V7CWbGjhgxfNIDbAQ&s=19

All looking pretty positive.

@Fairylights25

Our covid ward is FULL of the unvaccinated. People need to vaccinate and fast if they want to stay out of lockdowns.

Yep....doctor friend says the same. I wish people would listen to the advice. It's a fine balance between the NHS coping and the NHS collapsing and the latter means more restrictions and more lockdowns. I'm starting to lose patience now with people who could be vaccinated and choose not to be.

"Cases of the Omicron variant could be spreading even faster in England than in South Africa, according to a senior scientific adviser, who warned that the variant was a “very severe setback” to hopes of bringing the pandemic under control.

Prof John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said that plan B measures announced by the prime minister were “absolutely not an overreaction” even if Omicron turned out to be milder than the current dominant variant.

Edmunds told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar on Thursday that it was “extremely likely” there were many more cases of Omicron in the community than those confirmed by testing, and that the numbers were set to soar in the weeks ahead"

@frazzledali

why can't it just be promising news without all the mad bastards jumping on and shouting IT'LL BE A NEW VARIANT NEXT etc? You make yourselves look deranged.

The common cold has multiple mutant variants, but because it doesn't make people as ill as covid/other SARS, that seems to be overlooked in many people's logic.

Well, the positivity lasted for about a page and a half. How unusual.

I am not even talking to friends that are not vaccinated, atm, they are putting ALL of our lives at risk, our children back into lockdown.

It is unforgivable in my view, given the suicide rate amongst teens, mental health in dire straits, and the country will suffer. I can't believe anyone could be so selfish as to choose to look the other way when we have the option of coming through this not unscathed, but in better shape with some restrictions. I don't know how they sleep at night.

The anti vaxxers I know won't be persuaded by anything. Not even money .
Five million are convinced that the vaccine is poison/ untested / might kill them etc.
I think these latest revelations will just make them dig their heels in even more.

@Fairylights25 please stop going on about how awful the unvaccinated are.
As an unvaccinated person, the current discourse is making me actually ill with stress. I'm so tired of explaining this but people have their reasons, often relating to their own health backgrounds. This whole anti-vaxxer 5G lunatic thing is a total strawman. In reality it's complex and whipping up a witch hunt is horrible for individuals and society.

Yep....doctor friend says the same. I wish people would listen to the advice. It's a fine balance between the NHS coping and the NHS collapsing and the latter means more restrictions and more lockdowns.

The NHS coping? It has been impossible to be seen in person by a GP for the last 18 months in our area, we don't bother with them anymore. Ambulance waiting times are through the roof and the NHS is not providing an adequate service.

I am all for positivity but it's a laughable notion that the NHS is 'coping'.

Funnily enough, lockdown means furlough, which in turn means less public money to go into the NHS. Lockdowns are counter productive.

Lock down adults who refuse to be vaccinated, go back to bubbles, if the virus 'rips' through a bubble, they'll be done with it in a few weeks, no nee for a national lockdown.

And let's remember how absolutely horrific lockdowns are for the most vulnerable children who cannot be protected when they are locked away at home with their abusers.

[quote MaxNormal]@Fairylights25 please stop going on about how awful the unvaccinated are.
As an unvaccinated person, the current discourse is making me actually ill with stress. I'm so tired of explaining this but people have their reasons, often relating to their own health backgrounds. This whole anti-vaxxer 5G lunatic thing is a total strawman. In reality it's complex and whipping up a witch hunt is horrible for individuals and society.[/quote]
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I do not believe in demonizing the ones who don't want this vaccine. It's a slippery slope. I admire their resolve because their lives will be harder because of their decisions.
It's only my point of view though and I've had three jabs and covid and a booster booked up too.
I understand why they don't want it ..I had misgivings , but i weighed up the pros and cons and decided it was better to have it.
I can't be annoyed at those who decided against it and chose a different path.
It's all just causing more divides and that's sad too.

@ChilliGoat actually, I haven’t said it’s clear. I’m not disputing that if it is more transmissible and if it is only slightly less virulent then it could potentially cause problems if the vaccine doesn’t hold up against serious disease. There are a lot of ifs there though. If it turns out to be mild (and I mean mild cold-like mild) then it will not overwhelm hospitals, even if there are a high number of cases.

Agree with this 80s.

So say (and these are theoretical figures for example) it affected 2 in every 100 people severely, instead of 5 in every 100 people severely then that’s good.

But if it spreads five times more quickly it infects 500 people in the time the last variant infected 100. This would see 10 people (5x2) with severe disease instead of 5 (5x0) with the old variant

@ChilliGoat and @chesirecat99 thank you so much for your helpful posts .I was unable to make any sense of Natalie Dean's sketches but now I can !

So a more infectious variant can cause more severe disease more quickly due to its infectiousness. It can cause more breakthrough severe illness too. I had breakthrough severe illness from delta. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and it seems more breakthroughs will happen - especially in those jabbed twice or less.

@QueenofKattegat

Well, the positivity lasted for about a page and a half. How unusual.

Yep. Some people seem intent on whipping up fear. I’m just going to keep watching the data from SA.

I think before omicron emerged we were more or less resigned to everybody catching delta. The key was in making sure that peoples immune systems were as fully boosted as possible at the time they caught it to minimise the effects, and that new medications were available to people whose immune systems were more vulnerable. From that perspective a variant which is more transmissible but less virulent replacing delta is excellent news in the long term.

The problem is that an increase in transmissibility can cause rapid exponential growth in the short term. The UK has reached equilibrium with delta by a combination of immunity, vaccination and social measures, but if you break that stalemate then all bets are off. Doubling transmission doesn't just double case numbers, it can increase by any number you like until you run out of population, and if omicron has a shorter reproduction period that could happen quickly enough to overwhelm hospitals even if a smaller share of infected cases require hospitalisation. So yes, the government had to act, because even if it's great news in the long term, the risks are too high in the short term with our current state of knowledge.

It's possible that we actually want everyone to catch this variant, but not all at once - does the phrase "flattening the curve" ring any bells?

Trouble is in Scotland they been trying to flatten the curve year round.
If you have an annual winter heath service crisis "baked in" what's the point in that?

@MaxNormal
I don't demonise you but I do think that the unvaccinated should be given the restrictions and not the rest of us. I respect your right to choose but with any choice comes the responsibility to consider others and I would prefer not to be next to you on a bus or at the cinema. Would you accept limitations to your daily life in order to stay unvaccinated? Negative lateral flow tests are not the answer as they can easily be faked so what would be a fair way for the vaxxed and non-vaxxed to coexist?

@Billandben444 I can't be vaccinated. In my case I have a consultant's letter stating that I'm not to have it but it's really not a clear-cut thing of some people that are medically exempt, and others that are anti-vaxx loons. Many, many people are probably similar to me but have a less sympathetic doctor.

If restrictions are tightened so that I can't do things then there's not a lot I can do about it. I still can't be vaccinated.

[quote Billandben444]@MaxNormal
I don't demonise you but I do think that the unvaccinated should be given the restrictions and not the rest of us. I respect your right to choose but with any choice comes the responsibility to consider others and I would prefer not to be next to you on a bus or at the cinema. Would you accept limitations to your daily life in order to stay unvaccinated? Negative lateral flow tests are not the answer as they can easily be faked so what would be a fair way for the vaxxed and non-vaxxed to coexist?[/quote]
Why? You could be sitting next to a vaccinated person on the bus who has the virus. Just because a person is unvaccinated doesn’t mean that they aren’t immune or that they’re infected. And lfts for all to reduce risk in certain venues would make far more sense than giving potentially infected people a pass simply because they’ve had a vaccine.

ChilliGoat Fri 10-Dec-21 01:15:17

^As Cheshire has said twice, if it’s more virulent it will reach more people more quickly.

So say (and these are theoretical figures for example) it affected 2 in every 100 people severely, instead of 5 in every 100 people severely then that’s good.

But if it spreads five times more quickly it infects 500 people in the time the last variant infected 100. This would see 10 people (5x2) with severe disease instead of 5 (5x0) with the old variant.^

Really good point.

I may sound petulant but it works both ways. 80% at least of the threads on here are pessimistic. Scare stories about how under 5s are more affected with this variant. Lockdowns are looming etc. When we pop on to those threads and say ‘hang on we don’t have the data yet’ we get criticism.

Yet trying to balance this with some positive news still gets met with ‘we don’t have the data yet’ but we do have some data. And it works both ways.

I remember it became clear very quickly that Delta was more serious than previous strains in the way it was affecting younger people in India (not children as was scaremongered.

This variant has been around for well over a month now (at least) and there have been zero deaths (that I have seen reported). We may not be able to conclude it’s all positive but we definitely do not need to see all the scaremongering. Balance is also important in these boards and it is completely lacking.

See the other ‘under 5s’ thread. That died the minute someone posted some actual evidence to the contrary. That’s not as exciting to post on is it? And whip people up in to a frenzy.

Really, conspiracy theorists should stop lying. I've just done a web search of the world health organisation, and they do not say that. If you have a link to the actual WHO site where that is said, please supply it. Random "quotes" on twitter won't suffice.

Sure. But, based on that example, if it affects only 1 in every 100 people severely then even if 5 x more people are infected we still only have the same number severely affected. If it affects only 1 in 1000 people more severely then even 5 x more people infected would still mean fewer serious cases. Let’s hope that this turns out to be the case.

Good post @Delatron

@the80sweregreat

I do not believe in demonizing the ones who don't want this vaccine. It's a slippery slope. I admire their resolve because their lives will be harder because of their decisions. It's only my point of view though and I've had three jabs and covid and a booster booked up too. I understand why they don't want it ..I had misgivings , but i weighed up the pros and cons and decided it was better to have it. I can't be annoyed at those who decided against it and chose a different path. It's all just causing more divides and that's sad too.

But this is the thing - THEIR lives should be harder. Right now they are making everyone's lives harder, and it's time to stop tolerating it.