What IS the fuss about omicron?

[GingerHouse]

In all seriousness, data shows that not a single person has died from omicron and that’s in countries that have low vaccine uptake too.

The virus is going to mutate all the time and as things are showing this variant is very contagious and the vaccine doesn’t work as well against it, but it’s mild to almost everybody.

I feel like this is mass panic and for what reason?! I understand wearing a mask where applicable to help reduce the spread but I just don’t get it! Is this going to happen every winter forevermore?

Making this variant as dangerous as the common cold. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or goady or anything like that but looking at the infection to hospitalisation/death ratio there is no need to panic.

You sound really, really well informed and maybe you should write to the government because your insights will probably really help

Well where was sage 1000 per day prediction? Didn't even happen.

Are you talking about deaths from covid ? Can I draw your attention back to the beginning of the year ? after Christmas was cancelled because of the Delta variant. 19th of January 2021, 1359 deaths.

@rrhuth

If you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs... maybe you haven't understood the severity of the situation.

It is ignorance, not wisdom, that is enabling the op to 'not get' the frenzy.

And willful ignorance at that

This IS the "original covid" just a milder fucking form of it!

I wonder what percentage of people who get flu develop complications and require hospital treatment. More or less than 1%?

A hell of a lot less!!! See here for example:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-flu-levels-according-to-phe-statistics-2018-to-2019

The rather excellent news is, because of the roll out of the vaccine programme, we are nowhere near those numbers, so get your chuffing booster, pop on a mask if you can and accept that Winter in the UK is invariably a bit shit

OP, I get it. It's weird, like the internet and news is somehow causing this over exaggerated caution. Ignore the person who said it was the stupidest post ever.
People are so invested and captured by the media, and so easily.
I expect we won't have another year of this. Where I am in London, hardly anybody was wearing a mask in shops today. A lot of people are ignoring the hype.

@Wizzbangfizz

This IS the "original covid" just a milder fucking form of it!

Where's your data? How much milder? Put a number on it. How many cases have you assessed?

You've got some bullshit off Facebook. Can you even read a graph?

I'm not overly concerned about dying from omicron, but surely what differentiates it from something like flu is the incredible rate at which it spreads from person to person. If flu could spread at the same rate, it would cause the same degree of concern. Even if it doesn't kill a single person, wouldn't having a huge proportion of the population all unwell at once be incredibly dangerous? If a large percentage are sick, not sick enough to need hospital treatment but sick enough to need to stay at home, that means not enough healthcare staff to provide safe care, not enough teachers for schools to open safely, not enough care workers to look after people in care homes or keep essential shops running etc etc.

I don't want restrictions at all, far from it. We were horrendously financially affected by the lockdowns and thought we would lose our home. I have no idea what the answer is, but it seems absolutely clear to me that there is something to worry about.

I expect we won't have another year of this. Where I am in London, hardly anybody was wearing a mask in shops today. A lot of people are ignoring the hype

Anyone else getting Groundhog Day vibes ? .

@rrhuth

Making this variant as dangerous as the common cold. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or goady or anything like that but looking at the infection to hospitalisation/death ratio there is no need to panic.

You sound really, really well informed and maybe you should write to the government because your insights will probably really help

Oh do you know what, this ‘holier than thou’ stance. I am just as informed as you I’m sure, and I’m of the opinion that I don’t get the measures being taken, and you are not. It doesn’t make any of us a lesser person.

"I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or goady or anything like that but looking at the infection to hospitalisation/death ratio there is no need to panic"

Nobody, but nobody, yet knows what those ratios are for this variant.

But yiubare correct that panic usually inhibits good decision making.

I think taking a precautionary approach until more is known is the only sensible response. No learning to live with vivid means using restrictions in an agile way to avoid peaks. When you see potential for a peak to arrive, that's when you need the measures to flatten and spread it. Not wait for more data by which time it could be all ok, or it could be rocketing, with the future admissions and death rate pretty much determined for at least the next three weeks.

I am late thirties, double jabbed with Pfizer, so it sounds like only by having a booster will I be well protected. So why haven't the booster jabs been opened to under 40s? The interval between jabs has been decreased to 3 months and yet I'm not allowed a booster currently!

The trouble is, it’s hard to tell what exactly is threatening to overwhelm the NHS:

• high volumes of seriously ill Covid patients
• high volumes of seriously ill non-Covid patients who have had delayed/neglected treatment due to Covid restrictions
• a reduction in beds (4,500 fewer since pre-Covid due to restrictions)
• patients who were admitted to hospital for something else and have now tested positive for Covid so can’t go home/back to their care setting
• staff self-isolating due to Covid positive children or track and trace

If you look at the data it is impossible to tell, because a lot of the above are rolled into one set.

There’s no doubt that the NHS is struggling, as it does every winter (particularly bad flu winters like 2017, when bed occupancy was often at 92%).

But are the restrictions themselves a bigger threat to the NHS than Covid?

@Wrongkindofovercoat

I expect we won't have another year of this. Where I am in London, hardly anybody was wearing a mask in shops today. A lot of people are ignoring the hype

Anyone else getting Groundhog Day vibes ? .

"Let's just pretend everything is fine! What could go wrong?"

@pinkpanther84

I am late thirties, double jabbed with Pfizer, so it sounds like only by having a booster will I be well protected. So why haven't the booster jabs been opened to under 40s? The interval between jabs has been decreased to 3 months and yet I'm not allowed a booster currently!

Whereabouts are you? London walk ins are doing most people over 30 at the moment and probably elsewhere too.

@Gingernaut

It's ultra contagious

It's dodging the vaccines - although they do still prevent serious illness, the vaccines aren't preventing infections

It may be relatively mild now, but if there's another variation, then it could become

Ultra contagious
Dodging the vaccines
Deadly as fuck - with or without vaccines.

Omicron is a reminder that this could go very wrong, very fast.

This is the most sensible post so far on this thread.

As for keeping people scared and easy to control - what a ridiculous comment.

@GingerHouse you're not informed at all.

You're completely uninformed.

It doesn't make you a lesser person no. But speaking about things when completely ignorant, and not even having the self-awareness to think you maybe need to educate yourself, is not cool at all.

You need to go and read and listen to real scientists and engage with the reality of what they are saying.

Well, a lot could go wrong of course, but signs are that we have to live with this.

And every single winter the NHS is overwhelmed, every winter there are pictures of people dying in corridors but instead of looking at actual reform of the inefficiency and mismanagement of the nhs we are choosing to go buy into the current narrative.

I agree that the NHS is always overwhelmed, and there should be reforms. But covid has put unprecedented pressure on services in other countries too. This isn’t U.K. specific. We have family in the Netherlands. They have a normally very efficient system there where you pay on a sliding scale for the health service and yet they are in partial lockdown. I believe they have similar vaccination rates to the U.K. I do trust SAGE, and would hope that the government follows their advice.

A million cases predicted in a week

You're a bit out of date on the doomsday scenarios, heldinadream ... Javid actually said it could be 1 million cases a day

@pinkpanther84

I am late thirties, double jabbed with Pfizer, so it sounds like only by having a booster will I be well protected. So why haven't the booster jabs been opened to under 40s? The interval between jabs has been decreased to 3 months and yet I'm not allowed a booster currently!

Lack of capacity. If we could vax 2m a day we could open to all ages, but we can't so have to offer to the most at risk of being hospitalised.

@Porcupineintherough

Good God when a virus evolved that targets the stupid I for one won't be calling for a vaccine to be developed. It's not even like you need a degree in epidemiology to understand this, a basic grasp of mathematics will do.

Amen

So are you getting your booster @GingerHouse or is this a 'don't get your booster' thread ?

[quote titchy] I wonder what percentage of people who get flu develop complications and require hospital treatment. More or less than 1%?

A hell of a lot less!!! See here for example:
[[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-flu-levels-according-to-phe-statistics-2018-to-2019]][/quote]
Not really. Hospital admission rates for January 2019 for flu (closest I could find to compare seasonally with now) were 5.11 per 100,000. At the moment they are around 6.4 per 100,000 for Covid. So yes, a bit higher, but not spectacularly so.