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?

@shreddednips

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.

But aren’t there lots testing positive to this variant that are asymptomatic? Plenty of reports I’ve read say that most of the cases in hospital in South Africa where actually there for a completely unrelated reason and just happened to test positive to a Omicron on standard testing.

Part of the issue with how things stand is people being off work or school even if completely well. As insane as it sounds if enough people get the boosters and positive cases didn’t have to isolate if well and could still go to work and school there could still be enough workers left that we could let Omicron wash through the population without society grinding to a halt. After all, a large number of people get flu asymptomatically every year, possibly pass it on to others and are none the wiser.

99.7% of the population survive this - there is zero evidence to suggest that this variant is anything to be concerned about and the measures put in place are simply preposterous

@LuluBlakey1

We are not really comparable with South Africa which is 5 x the size of the UK with 10 million less people and a much younger population- much less seriously affected by Covid - they ate saying no deaths but their actual death rate has doubled since omicron arrived (what's that about?) In addition, because so many younger people have been ignoring rules here about social distancing, hand-washing, masks, our Covid rates are already high and omicron is much more transmissable so we can expect much higher case numbers. Once is transmits to more vulnerable people - other health conditions, disabled, elderly -the worry is how ill will they become and how this will impact on the NHS. There is no other response really - the NHS needs more staff, more resources, more facilities and you can't provide these overnight. They need to be planned for over years to ensure stability and investment needs to be made. The Conservative party are not interested in this investment in public services- they prefer to privatise them and allow businesses to strip profits from the public funds given to run them.So we are forced into trying to protect the NHS by trying to reduce transmissions.

It's literally fuck all to do with younger people not handwashing and ignoring rules. Less than fuck all.

Your points about the NHS are good ones but please stop blaming younger people for a pandemic runnings its course.

@CherryBlossomAutumn

Last time I looked no one served me anything… must get a new chef.

Oh dear. You are being served everything daily. From food, information, your views opinions and even what goes in your subconscious.

No but the food that we are being served in this county is horrendously addictive and causes obesity extremely easily so it may as well be with the amount of hospitalisations and deaths it causes. Far far more than covid ever has or ever will

You can easily not buy or eat that food though? (and I agree healthy food should be cheaper than processed shit, thats a different debate). You can't really avoid catching covid if you are going about your necessary business and someone passes it to you.

Viruses tend to evolve over time to become less deadly. This is because the less deadly versions have an evolutionary advantage in that if they don’t kill their host, then the host can pass the virus on to more people.

It has been suggested that in Omicron, Covid is reaching it’s evolutionary end point, and is the version we'll learn to live with. So it could be suggested that Omicron is nothing to be scared of. Especially if it’s going to help kill off the Delta variant.

It remains to be seen if this is the case, which is why the government is being cautious.

The problem is, as I’ve said before, England’s cases of Covid have been way, way too high for the last few months, and 100 deaths a day is insane. This is before Omicron, so whether omicron results in more hospitalisations or deaths, our system is already not coping. We already have to change, ventilation, mask wearing, and taking kids and schools seriously.

@Silverswirl I think you need to change where you get your information from. About food. About Covid. Both totally wrong.

@Doris86

Viruses tend to evolve over time to become less deadly. This is because the less deadly versions have an evolutionary advantage in that if they don’t kill their host, then the host can pass the virus on to more people.

It has been suggested that in Omicron, Covid is reaching it’s evolutionary end point, and is the version we'll learn to live with. So it could be suggested that Omicron is nothing to be scared of. Especially if it’s going to help kill off the Delta variant.

It remains to be seen if this is the case, which is why the government is being cautious.

But if that is the case, shouldn’t we just let omicron run it’s course then? Instead of hiding away?

Oh dear. You are being served everything daily. From food, information, your views opinions and even what goes in your subconscious

Let me guess. You've done your own research?

What is the virus hoping to achieve by infecting as many as possible then? What's the point of it?

I am just as informed as you I’m sure

That's a really good point. What qualifications do you have? This is a really specialised area. It takes a team of experts from a range of disciplines to come up with a most likely scenario and another team to evaluate what the response to that at a population level should be.

You're not any less of a person at all but if you 'don't get the fuss' are you really the person we should substitute for those scientists and policy makers who have made a life's work of this? What if you're not able to appreciate the risk because you're unfamiliar with exponential growth, NHS capacity, levels of staff needed to keep schools open, current waiting lists for urgent cancer care etc etc?

Hiding away?!

I actually don’t even know what to say anymore.

We should face omicron and get it?

We need to ‘just live with it’.

100 deaths a day
100 deaths a day
100 deaths a day….

Totally preventable.

@CherryBlossomAutumn

Hiding away?!

I actually don’t even know what to say anymore.

We should face omicron and get it?

We need to ‘just live with it’.

100 deaths a day
100 deaths a day
100 deaths a day….

Totally preventable.

Where is the evidence to suggest Omicron will cause 100 deaths per day?

@CherryBlossomAutumn

The problem is, as I’ve said before, England’s cases of Covid have been way, way too high for the last few months, and 100 deaths a day is insane. This is before Omicron, so whether omicron results in more hospitalisations or deaths, our system is already not coping. We already have to change, ventilation, mask wearing, and taking kids and schools seriously.

My point was with your comment ‘100 deaths a day is insane’ Ok. But I would like to know exactly who is dying with these 100 deaths a day. Is it mainly healthy or semi healthy people who would otherwise have years left and quality of life or is it elderly people at the end of life that sadly would die if they caught any virus? Or is it deaths being counted as coronavirus when actually they died with it not of it. It feels very much like we are heading towards more restrictions and there is even talk about another lockdown not being ruled out. To lockdown and shut schools I want to know more. This is affecting an entire generation of kids in many many ways. More months of missed school would be intolerable for most and deadly for some, including many vulnerable kids. Shutting everyone away is just not the answer- it causes so many horrendous issues that will be causing problems for years and years to come. 100 deaths a day is a tiny number when compared to deaths via obesity

@Silverswirl don't ask questions, Sage is the all knowing God of covid and we must never question anything. Hush now

Is it elderly people at the end of life that sadly would die if they caught any virus?

Are there any left?

This group have mostly been sacrificed already, surely?

@AnotherOneWithNoGoodName

Oh dear. You are being served everything daily. From food, information, your views opinions and even what goes in your subconscious

Let me guess. You've done your own research?

No research needed. Take a look around you. Look at what’s going in your mind via tv, news, social media Look at the adverts you are being shown. What your kids are being shown. Look in your local supermarket at the foods being offered. Look at what ingredients are in them. How they are being grown and what’s being put on them. Look at what people are buying. Look at the size of people and how that has changed over the years and is still changing. Why is this?

It’s the only way the Tories know how to talk to people. “Be afraid! Stay home!” Then a month later “Don’t cower at home! Get back to the office the economy needs you! If the country goes bankrupt it’s your fault! And get those sick kids into school or you’ll be fined, don’t you know their attendance was unacceptably low in 2021?” Then next month… “BE AFRAID again! Why aren’t you wearing a mask? Well of course WE aren’t but you should!”

It would be nice if the Tories would read a history book or two and learn why countries are not usually run in this fashion.

“Or maybe the people should have agreed to be vaccinated? People who won't be vaccinated should NOT be working with very vulnerable people!”

Well it was fine for them to put their own lives at risk to do their job last year when no vaccine was available and this year, vulnerable people have been vaccinated so are at lower risk. Also, many of those workers had the virus already so would be low risk anyway. I would much rather my loved ones were looked after by a good, unvaccinated carer than no one at all, thanks.

@Sowhatifiam we have the facilities already built.

@ddl1 obesity related illnesses have been putting strain on the nhs for years and being overweight/obese increases your risk of serious illness/hospitalisation with COVID.

Viruses only evolve to become less deadly if that gives them an advantage when it comes to spreading.

To take an extreme example - a virus that killed its infected human in half an hour, before that infected human had a chance to go out and mix with people and pass the virus on to more humans, would not spread very far.

Covid does its spreading and infecting before people even know they've got it, and well before they die. A variant that kills more slowly wouldn't therefore have much advantage over current covid - both can spread very effectively when people are pre-symptomatic, so that alone isn't going to make a milder one a clear winner.

It's just bizarre that the people who seem to think they're so clever asking questions don't understand that the rest of us already have the answer to all these questions because we pay attention to what the experts are saying.

You're not amazing and insightful, you've just had your heads in the sand for the entire pandemic, apparently.

COVID has no reason to evolve t a milder form yet.

@megustalacerveza

It's just bizarre that the people who seem to think they're so clever asking questions don't understand that the rest of us already have the answer to all these questions because we pay attention to what the experts are saying.

You're not amazing and insightful, you've just had your heads in the sand for the entire pandemic, apparently.

There are many ‘experts’ and they all say something different. I think you may have had a visit to the sand yourself?

@Silverswirl no, definitely not.

Yes, of course the experts all say something different. They're all working on slightly different things, from different perspectives and with different motivations. Rational, intelligent, educated people read all their findings and opinions and then form a balanced point of view of the situation. They don't ask basic, trite questions a five-year-old would ask, thinking they're being very clever.