So much for herd immunity then.

[2boysand1princess]

I now know 12 people personally who have got covid (most likely omricon) again!
Most have caught it after a year or more, but some have caught it within a few months! I’m really shocked at how this new variant is invading any natural immunity.
Scary to think that perhaps in another 6 months time there may be a another new variant that repeats this cycle all over again.
Anyone else feel just totally defeated and feel like no matter what we do (vaccines etc) this is going to be the way of life now?

Omicron hasn’t been around for a year. You can catch different variants, like Keir Starmer.

Chin up. It's the same with colds, no?

Over time, society will develop more widespread immunity. The vaccines have given most people a 'jump start', and then immunity from infection will boost on top.

TBH, we're probably going to be quite close to that point at the end of this wave.

It'll become less and less a problem. Probably never go away in the sense of being eradicated. But it won't be a front of mind concern for people. It'll be a sniffle to grumble about.

I hear you. I am just hopeful we get better vaccines soon. Whitty said 2023 for a variant busting vaccine. But I am not hopeful that that particular vaccine will give long lasting immunity, as the current vaccines seem to have such short lived immunity 😞

@puppeteer

Chin up. It's the same with colds, no?

Over time, society will develop more widespread immunity. The vaccines have given most people a 'jump start', and then immunity from infection will boost on top.

TBH, we're probably going to be quite close to that point at the end of this wave.

It'll become less and less a problem. Probably never go away in the sense of being eradicated. But it won't be a front of mind concern for people. It'll be a sniffle to grumble about.

I don't think we can be that sure of any of this tbh.

Repeated infections and the potential long term damage to health is the elephant in the room right now. People rightly want it to be "over" but if herd immunity is out, it will continue to infect and mutate over and over again. Hopefully to be nothing but a "sniffle" but there are no guarantees. And even in its current form, it will continue to be a real threat to the elderly and CEV, but again, it seems most people don't want to have that conversation either.

Still, the time of zero covid is long past, if it was ever feasible at all, so there's nothing much that can be done except wait for a vaccine that defeats transmission as well as illness and hope that will be the end of it.

And even in its current form, it will continue to be a real threat to the elderly and CEV, but again, it seems most people don't want to have that conversation either.

How much of a threat is it?
Yes, it is a threat. But hardly anyone used to bat an eyelid at flu killing 16,000 per year in the UK, or whatever. Yet that was a threat to the very same people, was it not?

Yes, I know people will blast with, a death is a death, you sound callous, flu is not covid, yada yada blah blah, you posted such and such, you sound a cow. Can you tell I shall not give two hoots about such posts?!]

So yes, lets have the conversation. Though I assume it has already been done two thousand times. I only flit in and out on mumsnet, so wouldnt know.

It is different from flu thought as it so so so much more contagious. Much more difficult to contain. And we don’t know the long term implications of catching it over and over. The fact it alters the taste and smell it worrying for me. It must alter the brain somehow to do this.

A friend has just tested positive again 7 weeks after having it, she's much more poorly this time too and triple jabbed

It is very worrying, but what are we to do🤷‍♀️

I think we are all going to get it multiple times over.

DH has just had it for the second time, he was hospitalised last time very poorly. This time it was like a very mild cold.

I keep saying this, but we're aiming for people no longer to have immune naivety, not herd immunity. We've known for a long time it's not getting eradicated but once people have been exposed it'll become just another circulating endemic illness.
Yes still dangerous to the very elderly, frail and CEV but so are other existing illnesses.

Exactly, we're building up a blanket of immunity that will eventually mean COVID in all its variants is mild for the vast majority. Not perfect immunity.

Max explains it well. I always assumed herd immunity meant never catching it again, but I didn't realise it did not mean that. I wish there were more awareness of this in health/Govt messaging as the expectation - upon hearing 'herd immunity' is that you only catch it once.

But do we know that future infections will be milder? I don’t think we know that. They say new variants evade existing immunity.

Yes, it is a threat. But hardly anyone used to bat an eyelid at flu killing 16,000 per year in the UK, or whatever. Yet that was a threat to the very same people, was it not?

It was a threat to all the same people, and the very young too.

Herd immunity doesn’t mean what you think it means. Here’s a cracking thread which explains it better.

twitter.com/ballouxfrancois/status/1478711035691470854?s=21

I think the worry is that whilst for some subsequent infections have been milder for others the have been more severe. Also with long covid somepeople who develop long covid didnt have a bad case of covid.

it is still too early to know how soon after omricon you could become reinfected, or how many will develop long covid after this wave.

There is still much unknown

I've just caught it for the 2nd time , triple jabbed but only just. It's been a lot milder for me this time even though I'd have said last time I didn't feel too bad

If it becomes the way of life then I hope that life gets more normal around it. I cant view schools for example with two of mine moving schools. It's two years of missed life opportunities for the kids.

Plus we are moving away from testing therefore finding new variants. I dont know what the answer is but we cant carry on like this

You can still catch MMR after the vaccination and they are always mild.

I know dozens of people who've had covid in the last few weeks (likely to have been omicron according to the stats) not a single one has had anything more than a bad cold. No breathing problems or anything that might need them to go in hospital, and most have had extremely mild symptoms that they haven't even popped a pill for.

An example would be when Europeans arrived in the Americas. The indiginous people had no immune familiarity with the strains of cold and flu they brought and it was catastrophic for them at the time.
Likewise Spanish flu is still one of the circulating influenza variants.

We are pretty much living with it now, no proper restrictions just masks and testing, which is being ramped down anyway. Over the next few months we will likely see masks go, and also testing which has already been leaked as possibly ending for the public in spring. This winter looks very different from last winter where we were licked down, and next winter will look different from this winter.

And yes there is the CEV argument as there will be some people who continue to be vulnerable, but unfortunately this is the same for all illnesses and this will be no different when testing ends.

Even long Covid is misleading as people assume there are no long term impacts from other illnesses. Flu and even the common cold can come with long term health problems.

I think it’s hard to get your head around the fact the this will be circulating and causing illness every year. I do think as @MaxNormal has said that the reason it has caused so many problems is the fact that it was a novel virus and we had zero immunity. We will be exposed over and over again now and build more and more immunity.

Looking for some encouraging news (as it is depressing) I’ve read omicron offers protection against delta. Obviously not vice versa. And it’s so infectious many, many of us will get Omicron and then develop a really broad immune response (coupled with the booster/vaccine protection).

It’s not great to have to deal with another virus every winter though. Most people only get flu once every 5-10 years I read. So I only worry about the odd cold or sometimes there can be random nasty viruses that knock you out circulating.

Long Covid is a worry. Hopefully we can get a lot more research done on this.