Good news re Omicron

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

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

All looking pretty positive.

@Delatron

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.

So true.

Many here seem addicted to drama.

@the80sweregreat I agree. I think it’s sad that some people are directing so much anger and hatred towards others. It’s not helpful.

@Tryingtryingandtrying

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

All looking pretty positive.

The problem is that a lot of people will read this and go 'oh it's fine, nothing to worry about' when in fact her main point is 'you need to get boosted'.

@Fairylights25

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-omicron-cases-doubling-every-2-3-days-and-expected-to-be-dominant-strain-with-a-month-12490171

It is substantially outpacing Delta

Yes, expected to be the dominant strain in a month. It's still far too early to come to any kind of conclusion about how it affects people...it simply hasn't been around long enough.

THEIR lives should be harder. Right now they are making everyone's lives harder, and it's time to stop tolerating it

I remember a time when people didn't say this sort of stuff out loud.
What would you like to do with me then? What misery would you like to see heaped upon my disabled self?

“Emerging data from South Africa indicates that Omicron may cause less severe illness. Data which looked at hospitalizations across South Africa between 14 November and 4 December found that ICU occupancy was only 6.3 % – which is very low compared with the same period when the country was facing the peak linked to the Delta variant in July. Data from the same two-week period from one of the health districts most impacted by Omicron found that out of more than 1200 admissions, 98 were receiving supplemental oxygen and only four were on ventilation. This is very preliminary data with a small sample size and most of the people admitted to the health facilities were under the age of 40. As the clinical profile of patients changes, the impact of Omicron may change.”

So we still need to keep an eye on things as it spreads more in older groups. But let’s take the positives so far! :)

www.afro.who.int/news/omicron-spreads-severe-cases-remain-low-south-africa

Also some interesting stats on vaccine availability to Africa and how many people have actually been able to be vaccinated. Quite sickening how some people are shouting that low risk already double vaccinated people have to have a third dose (even if they don’t want it) when so many vulnerable people and hcps in other parts of the world haven’t even had their first. Not sure those people have the moral high ground that they think they do.

@MaxNormal

THEIR lives should be harder. Right now they are making everyone's lives harder, and it's time to stop tolerating it

I remember a time when people didn't say this sort of stuff out loud.
What would you like to do with me then? What misery would you like to see heaped upon my disabled self?

Get over yourself. There will be exemptions for people who CANNOT be vaccinated, just like there are in other countries. Those who CHOOSE not to get vaccinated, well, why should they get to raise everyone's risk for a choice they made? Going to a club or a cinema isn't an entitlement. We're in the middle of a pandemic, and if you choose not to take a vaccine that would lower everyone's risk, then you need to live with that decision.

BTW, if you're so very vulnerable that you can't be vaccinated, then you should be delighted that most of the rest of the population is willing to get vaccinated to help you. This is entirely the point of vaccination - the vast majority of people being vaccinated helps protect those who can't be, just like how vaccines have always worked. The majority of kids being vaccinated against measles means vulnerable children who can't be vaccinated are much less at risk. Why do people lose their shit so much when it comes to covid?

You're someone who should want as many people vaccinated as possible, because you can't be. And yet here you are arguing against that. Pure madness. Absolute madness.

@MaxNormal please don’t take it to heart. I think people like that are still, thankfully, well in the minority

[quote bumbleymummy]@MaxNormal please don’t take it to heart. I think people like that are still, thankfully, well in the minority [/quote]
People who understand the importance of the majority being vaccinated, to help protect vulnerable people LIKE HER? You know, how every vaccine since the beginning of time has always worked?

I think I'm going to have to leave this thread. The lack of education and ability for balanced, rational thought is appalling and frightening.

We also need to remember ‘hospital admissions’ include people in hospital for other things and happen to test positive whilst there. So not necessarily indicated severe disease from Covid.

What we need now is good data about severe disease and death from this new variant. Only then can we draw any conclusions.

@megustalacerveza I've already explained in a previous post what a grey area there is between won't and can't. It's nigh on impossible to get a medical exemption for this vaccine, but there will be a lot of people who know their own conditions and who have perfectly valid misgivings. There are also those that have had a bad reaction to their first vaccine and opted not to complete the course.

I'm not vulnable to covid any more than anyone else, I had it early on and it wasn't a serious illness for me. I don't tolerate many classes of medication though, that's why I can't have it.

And no I don't want other people to be vaccinated to keep me safe. My health issues stem from medication injury so I'm absolutely passionate about informed choice, and genuinely find the thought of someone being forced into taking a medication against their will quite horrifying. I certainly wouldn't want it done in my name.

@bumbleymummy thank you. The rhetoric getting whipped up is quite unpleasant now, the Andrew Neil article today being a case in point.

@megustalacerveza unlike the many other vaccines that we use to vaccinate the majority in order to create herd immunity, this vaccine is not as good as preventing infection and protection against infection wanes quite quickly.

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114114

And no, not every vaccine ‘since the beginning of time’ works on the basis of herd immunity. We offer several vaccines directly to the vulnerable to reduce their own risk of serious illness rather than trying to vaccinate the masses.

[quote MaxNormal]@megustalacerveza I've already explained in a previous post what a grey area there is between won't and can't. It's nigh on impossible to get a medical exemption for this vaccine, but there will be a lot of people who know their own conditions and who have perfectly valid misgivings. There are also those that have had a bad reaction to their first vaccine and opted not to complete the course.

I'm not vulnable to covid any more than anyone else, I had it early on and it wasn't a serious illness for me. I don't tolerate many classes of medication though, that's why I can't have it.

And no I don't want other people to be vaccinated to keep me safe. My health issues stem from medication injury so I'm absolutely passionate about informed choice, and genuinely find the thought of someone being forced into taking a medication against their will quite horrifying. I certainly wouldn't want it done in my name.

@bumbleymummy thank you. The rhetoric getting whipped up is quite unpleasant now, the Andrew Neil article today being a case in point.[/quote]
Nobody is being forced to have a vaccine. If they don't want one, they can avoid places where one is needed. I'm not sure why you find that unacceptable, but you think it's OK for people who are vaccinated to be exposed to higher risk.

Many developing nations are suffering from vaccine shortage but South Africa aren't - they've just delayed a shipment because they have more vaccine than they can use. You'd hope that recent news will increase uptake and help them use their backlog.
www.reuters.com/world/africa/exclusive-south-africa-delays-covid-vaccine-deliveries-inoculations-slow-2021-11-24/

'm not sure why you find that unacceptable, but you think it's OK for people who are vaccinated to be exposed to higher risk

Surely it's the unvaccinated who are the ones being exposed to higher risk though? Given that the vaccine helps prevent serious illness and death rather than prevent transmission?

Yes South Africa has more of a shortage of arms to put the vaccine in - to say people are in general not keen is putting it mildly.

“A snapshot of 42 patients in the ward on 2 December 2021 reveals that 29 (70%) are not oxygen dependent. These patients are saturating well on room air and do not present with any respiratory symptoms. These are the patients that we would call ‘incidental COVID admissions’, having had another medical or surgical reason for admission. Thirteen (13) patients are dependent on supplemental oxygen of which nine (21%) have a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia based on a combination of symptoms, clinical signs, CXR and inflammatory markers. All are being prescribed steroids as the mainstay of therapy. The remaining 4 patients are on oxygen for other medical reasons (2 previously on home oxygen, 1 in heart failure and 1 with a confirmed diagnosis of Pneumocystis Pneumonia).”

www.samrc.ac.za/news/tshwane-district-omicron-variant-patient-profile-early-features

This is from last week. I’d love to see a similar breakdown for the situation now.

@bumbleymummy

“Emerging data from South Africa indicates that Omicron may cause less severe illness. Data which looked at hospitalizations across South Africa between 14 November and 4 December found that ICU occupancy was only 6.3 % – which is very low compared with the same period when the country was facing the peak linked to the Delta variant in July. Data from the same two-week period from one of the health districts most impacted by Omicron found that out of more than 1200 admissions, 98 were receiving supplemental oxygen and only four were on ventilation. This is very preliminary data with a small sample size and most of the people admitted to the health facilities were under the age of 40. As the clinical profile of patients changes, the impact of Omicron may change.”

So we still need to keep an eye on things as it spreads more in older groups. But let’s take the positives so far! :)

www.afro.who.int/news/omicron-spreads-severe-cases-remain-low-south-africa

Also some interesting stats on vaccine availability to Africa and how many people have actually been able to be vaccinated. Quite sickening how some people are shouting that low risk already double vaccinated people have to have a third dose (even if they don’t want it) when so many vulnerable people and hcps in other parts of the world haven’t even had their first. Not sure those people have the moral high ground that they think they do.

If we look at data for alpha and hospitalisations and deaths and compare it to our delta wave, what do we see?

A massive reduction in deaths and hospitalisations.

So obviously this means delta is less virulent. Right?

No. We know this is the result of population immunity from acquired immunity from covid itself and vaccines.

Yet we keep seeing this bollocks being spouted over delta v omicron.

Please just stop it. Even WHO has done it and then its been clarified as showing population immunity rather than less virualence.

Yes. This is good news. Its good news in terms of those who have immunity. So probably good news for the uk as most people have had either a vaccine or had covid.

But there are lots of kids who haven't. And there are lots of adults who have not had a vaccine or are immuno suppressed that this is an issue for. And its perhaps less good news for some other countries around the world with lower population immunity.

I think the uk comes out with 97 or 98% population immunity in adults but its only 80% in Germany still. Germany was already facing concerns with a delta wave even with a better hospital infrastructure. There is massive regional disparity with a much lower rate in the east. They are already transferring patients from the east to hospitals in the west.

People are forgetting correlation and causation.

There is good news but it also is showing up that there is a potential for problems too.

Make sure you know what you are seeing is definitely what you think it is.

Read the room will you? this is mumsnet, no positivity allowed.

@HariboMaroon

Read the room will you? this is mumsnet, no positivity allowed.

Positivity is great. Misreading and misunderstanding things not so much.

Lets just try and read these as accurately as possible so we can perhaps think about the cracks and people who might fall through the net here.

My thoughts jump here to young children who have been kept home and not been exposed to covid and cant get a vaccine.

Its important we fully understand whether we are seeing the effects of population immunity (which is still a good thing) or reduced virulence.

It makes a difference to strategy (and whether we should be vaccinating younger children)

@MaxNormal

THEIR lives should be harder. Right now they are making everyone's lives harder, and it's time to stop tolerating it

I remember a time when people didn't say this sort of stuff out loud.
What would you like to do with me then? What misery would you like to see heaped upon my disabled self?

And what 'misery' would you like to see heaped upon disabled people who cannot be effectively vaccinated who ARE very vulnerable to Covid Max?

@MaxNormal

'm not sure why you find that unacceptable, but you think it's OK for people who are vaccinated to be exposed to higher risk

Surely it's the unvaccinated who are the ones being exposed to higher risk though? Given that the vaccine helps prevent serious illness and death rather than prevent transmission?

I'm not sure how many times I can say the same thing. IT'S NOT ABOUT INDIVIDUALS. People are not islands. Their choices have an impact.

A doctor friend of mine has told me 50% of patients in his ICU for covid are unvaccinated. That's a much higher proportion than vaccinated people. A lot of these people would very, very likely have been absolutely fine if they'd been vaccinated. Because half the beds are being taken up by people who basically chose to be there, it leaves very few beds for the next wave, when vulnerable people who have been vaccinated still get sick and need ICU care. And that's going to cause more restrictions and possibly a lockdown, because the NHS will be at capacity. Again.

Because of these people's choices, all of us are going to end up suffering. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact.

I'm not including all the graphics here but do look on the original thread:
twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1468988174693289994

Natalie E. Dean, PhD @nataliexdean
A sketch to explain how a new variant may appear milder even with no change in underlying virulence. This can occur because, when calculating the fraction of cases that are severe, the denominator now includes many re-infections that had previously been averted. A thread. 1/8

Imagine a variant with little capacity for re-infection. The susceptible population is exposed to enough virus to infect. The infections include severe, moderate, mild disease, and asymptomatic infections. (Here I point out that these sketches are not to scale.) 2/8

But imagine our population also has a large fraction who have been previously infected. Because the variant has little capacity to re-infect, these potential infections were averted. 3/8

When we restrict our attention to the observed cases, some fraction of these are severe. This calculation necessarily excludes any infections that were averted. 4/8

Now imagine a variant with high capacity for re-infection. Amongst the susceptible population, the severity of the cases has not changed. Still the same fraction severe, moderate, mild, asymptomatic. But now we see re-infections, and these are generally not severe. 5/8

So we can still calculate the fraction of cases that are severe, but this is now lower. It is not lower because there are fewer severe cases, but because there are more mild cases (re-infections). 6/8

Thus, the severity profile of Omicron cases must be interpreted along with an understanding of its capacity to re-infect (and infect the vaccinated). I haven't talked about vaccines, but the relationships are similar. We expect a rise in milder cases in the vaccinated. 7/8

So when I look at data out of South Africa or elsewhere, I am thinking not just about the proportion of cases that are severe, but also the sheer number of severe cases, which demonstrates the public health impact of the variant. 8/END

This actually potentially supports the decision for us to open up when we did. The problem comes with very high case numbers but we may not have ways to combat a very very transmissible variant other than vaccines and increasing population immunity.

And this may be how things go forward. Albiet it with a reducing pool of those with no immunity and at highest risk of severe disease (as they eventually die either from covid or underlying conditions that put them at higher risk to begin with).

(This is not necessarily good news in terms of the NHS, in the long run btw).

The basic principle being that the pandemic phase ends when population immunity reaches saturation and every has been exposed and either in the words of the german health minister 'vaccinated, recovered or dead'.

Then we enter endemic stage where you have to keep on top of vaccinations and your risk of severe disease is associated with your other health concerns.

Its a good reason to have a massive health drive and invest in better living and less poverty btw as inequality will lead to more deaths from covid over the long term compared to somewhere with better health and economic equality.

In other words, the good news can only go far in the uk, long term until we have some deep society level changes. And I can't see that happening tbh.

Nicola Sturgeon is speaking now ( sky news)
She is describing it as a tsunami :(