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?

Sorry was quoting weekly average not individual days. And I'm not saying any of those deaths are OK BTW, I'm surrounded by cev family and we shielded DS the first summer

I think if the next pandemic is influenza (highly likely) then we could see a totally different approach, bordering on what we've had with Covid. Testing, sequencing, isolation, lockdowns, etc. I wonder if we'll have learned anything from the Covid experience?

Nope

@Covidworries

Just to add - the flu deaths you say of an average of just above 300 a week and the 388 above is for a DAY - so the weekly figure is going to be far far higher than flu

Oh brain fart on the calculations isn't it. I've mixed days and weeks. Blame my current covid condition and ignore mr

@Diddytv

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.

not necessarily. the changes might be in the receptors...there are other situations that affect the senses of taste and smell that don't affect the brain. eg pregnancy!

At the very least we should be stopping the ridiculous forecasts! Fine the first one i grt there was not enough known but the second forecast for delay...never happened and the third one now..where are those 5,000/ 6,000 deaths an day? Where is the 2million a day catching it.

Enough with the scaremongering forecasts, none have been true. After this third time of being wrong just stop it. Utterly useless and pointless.

Deaths per day are deaths registered on that day. It is better to look at the actual date of death data. Registration of deaths is misleading since people don’t tend to register deaths at weekends or bank holidays so the numbers surge during working days.
The government stats site give the actual data and for most of December the actual deaths per date of death has been running at an average of 90 a day. The average number of deaths of any cause is 1500. At this time of year it will be higher.
As for flu the average is around 30000 during flu season which is Dec to April, probably 1800 a week for most years, however this may be doubled during a bad year. I haven’t seen any figures for flu last year.
The media rely on peoples inability to apply critical thinking and sound analysis of the data readily available.

@Covidworries

Just to add - the flu deaths you say of an average of just above 300 a week and the 388 above is for a DAY - so the weekly figure is going to be far far higher than flu

Except the 388 is deaths reported and covers a backlog from the christmas period - that number of people didn't actually die on a single day.

I had it mildly March 2020 and have just evaded it again going through the kids.

I think the immune system is far more sophisticated than we realise. We aren’t all going to get infected every three months

@AchillesLastStand

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

The Starmer Variant

agreed which means it is highly likely we dont have the full death figures for the last few dates because of the known delay in reporting deaths.

My point was data can be used to show lots of different scenarios depending if you want to minimise covid or not.

World o meter currently has 7 day average data as 170 covid deaths per day. so not as high as previous waves but not less than 300 odd a week flu deaths which was posted previously by a different poster and that I was responding to.

Well said @Dammitthisisshit. This is why the "lockdown is pointless because it's just kicking the can down the road" argument was always bollocks.

A triple vaccinated eighty year old man who shrugs off Omicron with a couple of days in bed at home rather than two weeks on oxygen in hospital doesn't think that that delay was pointless. A CEV person who now finally has the chance of a pill to reduce symptoms doesn't think it's pointless. A medic who knows the benefits of proning, and CPAP and the risks of silent hypoxia and has a cupboard full of dexamethasone doesn't think the delay was pointless.

guess the point being made was that of course reasonable measures were in place to deal with flu and all other illnesses. But we don’t have 24/7 news hysteria

Yeah, prior to covid we never had overblown media reports decrying that this would be the year that the winter bug season would cripple the NHS.

I know two people both triple jabbed, both having covid for the second time.

@Diddytv - the loss of taste & smell is not something in your brain. Covid doesn’t invade your brain. Early on they were concerned it might be the case but studies have shown otherwise. I’ve attached a pretty decent explanation. Essentially covid infects sensory support cells in your nose. Taste is intrinsically linked to your sense of smell.

The government needs to invest in the nhs quite frankly.

And by that I mean, stop letting private firms cream off a substantial portion of that funding by way of profit. That profit could be spent on nhs drugs, staff and beds.

@BoredZelda

guess the point being made was that of course reasonable measures were in place to deal with flu and all other illnesses. But we don’t have 24/7 news hysteria

Yeah, prior to covid we never had overblown media reports decrying that this would be the year that the winter bug season would cripple the NHS.

maybe because covid has caused bigger and more particular problems?

Thank you bibholll that’s very reassuring

Yes COVID kills, but so does neglecting other illnesses to control COVID.
I think you are confusing controlling Covid with treating Covid.
Operations and treatments were cancelled to release resources to treat Covid patients. When hospitals were still overwhelmed this time last year despite cancelling operations that had never been cancelled before we had a lockdown.

"But hardly anyone used to bat an eyelid at flu killing 16,000 per year in the UK, or whatever"

Flu is taken very seriously it's just that most people don't pay attention. Every year there is a public health campaign detailing the risk of flu and benefits of vaccination for certain groups. Flu surveillance reports are published weekly informing of current strain, estimated numbers, hospital outbreaks and ward closures etc.

@containsnuts

"But hardly anyone used to bat an eyelid at flu killing 16,000 per year in the UK, or whatever"

Flu is taken very seriously it's just that most people don't pay attention. Every year there is a public health campaign detailing the risk of flu and benefits of vaccination for certain groups. Flu surveillance reports are published weekly informing of current strain, estimated numbers, hospital outbreaks and ward closures etc.

Exactly, and to add flu isn’t innocuous. The swine flu caused widespread disruption and a hastily made vaccine, the ‘big’ pandemic was always forecast to be a type of flu and outbreaks of bird flu are treated gingerly (one was widely reported on a turkey farm before Christmas).

The hope is covid will end up the same i.e unless it’s causing issues to you personally you probably won’t hear much about it.

@sirfredfredgeorge

Not many people catch the flu though, I’m 41 years old and I’ve never had the flu

Yes you have! You just have fallen into the trap of thinking mild respiratory infection systems is "a cold" and not "the flu". Depending on the strain and previous infections and stuff you have up to 20% chance of having flu in any year, and the years you don't it's most likely due to pre-existing immunity from having a very similar strain before.

I am 49 and have only had flu twice. Flu is a serious illness and you stay in bed.

If it feels like a cold. it's a cold. Not flu.

Plenty of people have flu asymptomatically or with only minor symptoms. I've never had a flu-like illness of the sort described on here (so ill you can't get out of bed, wouldn't pick up £50 on the floor etc). Luckily, thus far I've never been so ill I couldn't get out of bed, and I'm 55. The closest I got to feeling unable to get up was when I had a postnatal infection and was on IV ABs in hospital. But that's not a virus.

@JuergenSchwarzwald

That's nonsense. The flu can present mildly, not requiring bed rest.

Omicron is less severe, plus whatever variant you've had, you'll retain some residual immunity - your system won't be blindsided by a totally alien virus - so if you get a future variant it's more likely to present as a cold or at worst, flu.