Half of Europe will have Covid in the next 6-8 weeks

[User1isnotavailable]

The WHO predicts it:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59948920

After that waning infections and improvements. So if you are CEV or live with CEV extra, extra precautions for a limited period of time maybe?

The main problem will be hospital's ability to cope.

It doesn't say that.
It says "will have had".

We are further ahead in the wave and a much better booster campaign than most.

So most of the cases will be in other European countries - our case numbers are dropping.

But there are still loads of people in the UK for it to infect.

I live in Spain health minister bhas announced today we have seen the peak now. It's declining here. We have 92% fully vaccinated over 12 yr olds and a good uptake in the 5yr olds and over .

They are now going to start treating it as an endemic disease such as flu
The headline from who says have* had it

@PAFMO

It doesn't say that. It says "will have had".

Yes it does - quote from the article below.

He quoted the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation as forecasting that "more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks".

In Switzerland. School has just gone back. 10% of the school population are at home isolating.
DS 17 has Covid. He is ok. Cold like symptoms, cough, irritable. No fever. Today and yesterday. Today he is much better

Yep, it's not "will be infected" it is "will have been infected". It is an estimated cumulative figure including all past infections.

No. It isn't. Even reading the headline makes that plain.

Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation as forecasting that "more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks".

That's 50% with Omicron, over the next 6-8 weeks.

The World Health Organization has warned that half of Europe will have been infected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 within six to eight weeks

Will have been.

Omicron

The use of tenses is confusing, yet to be expected in a shock headline article.
"to be infected"= not yet infected. All in the future.
"will have been infected"- future perfect- as pp's say, connecting a specific past moment to a specific future moment and, in this case, including all the relevant cases from within that period
"will be infected"- pure future- absolute fact. No room for uncertainty.

It's interesting. (As a language teacher, more for the shockingly random use of grammar tbf) I might use it in class as an illustration of why grammar matters and how news language is weighted in favour of whatever agenda the writer has.

The article seems really unclear as to which it means!

"half of Europe will have been infected with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 within six to eight weeks"

"more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks"

Well omicron is recent so to say that 50% will have had it [by spring] is referring to people who have just had it, have it or are about to get it.

Not about people who had it last summer.

@PAFMO newspaper tenses are a law unto themselves.

I used to be a reporter at a local paper and back in the days when we had lots of different editions per day, it became a minefield.

Ended up writing things like: “Councillor Janet Jones was today opening the new wing of a hospital in xxx”. As in, before she did it, she was doing it.

Used to confuse the shit out of me.

Here is the actual statement he made

www.euro.who.int/en/about-us/regional-director/statements-and-speeches/2022/statement-update-on-covid-19-omicron-wave-threatening-to-overcome-health-workforce

Whether he is right or not I have no idea but it is clearly a warning about what he thinks is going to happen with regards to coming omicron infections rather than being about culmative covid of all variants infections.

At this rate, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that more than 50% of the population in the Region will be infected with Omicron in the next 6–8 weeks.

Anyone CEV is already being as careful as possible, it's everyone else who should be taking precautions to keep themselves and CEV people safe.

The WHO is not so much predicting as warning that this is what can happen and health systems may be overwhelmed. This is more clear from the full statement posted by a pp, where recommended action is also outlined.

I remember early on in the pandemic a lot of people were already saying that everyone in the world will be infected and we need to make peace with that. This kind of self-fulfilling prophecy and defeatism has guided policy, unfortunately. The vaccines were highly effective at preventing infection and transmission with the earlier variants, so if wealthier countries had made a massive concentrated effort early on to help vaccinate the world, prioritised this over anything else (why were there not 24/7 vax centers everywhere?), and kept borders closed in the meantime, we could've perhaps had a better outcome than "repeated infections for everyone and a shittier life for vulnerable people, forever".

So not a good idea to end the "work from home if you can" guidance at the end of Jan then.

why were there not 24/7 vax centers everywhere?), and kept borders closed in the meantime

God not quite sure even where to start with this insane declaration

That's a bit scary

@Sheabutterisdelish

why were there not 24/7 vax centers everywhere?), and kept borders closed in the meantime

God not quite sure even where to start with this insane declaration

Is it a more insane idea than lockdowns, tents in hospital car parks, people dying without being able to see their loved ones, and all the other stuff that's happened instead? What's so insane about it? Either COVID is important enough to paralyse the world to an unprecedented degree or it's not. If it's the latter, why have we had so much disruption? If it's the former, why was it not worth a vaccination campaign working round the clock?

Yawn.
Old now.
Even my previously paranoid colleagues are now over it.

I read it was sweeping from East to West, I hope we've had the worst of it as numbers seems to be dropping again. Although that might be due to the schools break and numbers might ramp up again now shortly.

@ArdeaCinerea

The WHO is not so much predicting as warning that this is what can happen and health systems may be overwhelmed. This is more clear from the full statement posted by a pp, where recommended action is also outlined.

I remember early on in the pandemic a lot of people were already saying that everyone in the world will be infected and we need to make peace with that. This kind of self-fulfilling prophecy and defeatism has guided policy, unfortunately. The vaccines were highly effective at preventing infection and transmission with the earlier variants, so if wealthier countries had made a massive concentrated effort early on to help vaccinate the world, prioritised this over anything else (why were there not 24/7 vax centers everywhere?), and kept borders closed in the meantime, we could've perhaps had a better outcome than "repeated infections for everyone and a shittier life for vulnerable people, forever".

The vaccines were highly effective at preventing infection and transmission with the earlier variants

Were they really though or would their protection have waned over time regardless of different variants?

Plus I don't know how realistic it is to vaccinate against a coronavirus (something that has certainly never been achieved before) because they simply mutate too quickly.

The only way to achieve what you suggest would have been to vaccinate the entire world population at the same time with sterilizing vaccines. That is, to do something impossible as we have neither the logistics nor the (sterilizing) vaccine nor the will of everyone to be vaccinated nor the individual need.

There are scientists who have been voicing concern for some time now that mass vaccination, with non sterilizing vaccines, during a pandemic, against a type of virus known to mutate quickly, would result in the emergence of a highly infectious vaccine resistant strain.

Which may well be what we are seeing Omicron. We will know more over the coming weeks I imagine.

@PAFMO

It doesn't say that. It says "will have had".

Yes it does. I quote:

"Covid: Half of Europe to be infected with Omicron within weeks - WHO"