How are case numbers still so high? Omicron twice?

[BasementIdeas]

According to ONS, about 1 in 20 of us currently have Covid. Given how which case numbers have been consistently since Omicron was detected, how hasn’t it burnt out by now? Have there been any documented cases of people getting Omicron twice? Has anyone tested positive twice since Xmas?

I know loads of people who had it at Christmas and have had it again recently.

This is from ONS a month ago:

The rate of reinfections sharply increased

There has been a large increase in the rate for all reinfections when the Omicron variant was most common. There were 586 reinfections in the pre-Omicron period (2 July 2020 to 19 December 2021) and 1,141 after the Omicron variant became most common (20 December 2021 to 6 February 2022). The reinfection rate increased from 11.7 to 141.1 per 100,000 people since the Omicron variant became most common.

I can’t find more up to date info

Thanks @ChuckBerrysBoots but I assumed that was people getting delta (or an earlier variant) the first time and omicron the second time, which is understandable

It’s people are getting the same variant twice in 2 months that I would find more concerning, as surely our antibodies should protect against that

They are getting BA2 which is the new variant and is derived from omicron. Also vaccine protection is waning . Cases are high everywhere in Europe

I've had covid twice this year (mid January and currently). My current infection is very different to my January one, and also completely different from my previous three infections in 2020/21.

I'm absolutely convinced this is a different (and more severe) strain than the one I had in January.

I has it Christmas eve and the end of January tested negative in-between times and had completely different symptoms its not nice

Seems like peoples second or third infection probably due to different variants. Having a previous infection doesn’t seem to give some of us much immunity from catching another
People anecdotally seem quite poorly with this one. My colleague who has her second infection in 7 months says it feels like flu: she is in bed and tired, poorly etc but not quite as bad as her delta infection. Seemed to hit hard and fast.

I’ve not had any despite working through and having covid contact on a ward regularly. Feels like this one is closing in though.

So is this it now for the rest of our lives? A new variant every other month? Surely it’s got to calm down at some point.

@TypicaIMe I have it currently and DP had it in January. I'm also convinced this is a more severe strain.

I think it's new variant that people are catching. Added contribution is the waning effectiveness of booster as many had theirs 3 or 4 months ago.

We've never had it previously but whole house has it at the moment and I know a lot of others poorly.

There is a new variant of omicron which, incredibly is even more transmissible than the last one!

Agree with those saying current one seems nastier, not that people I know are getting sick enough to need intervention but they’re definitely feeling rougher than we did when we had it in January

Just wrote in another thread too…want to concur that this latest variant is definitely not mild. I tested positive 4 days ago and am experiencing full blown flu symptoms. Fever, aches, chest pain, no energy …dragging self from sofa to bed and asleep early evening.
Annoys me when news reports it as just a more mild version when there’s actually no proper testing happening as no more PCR tests…
I’m reasonably healthy 40+ who’s triple jabbed and am finding the covid experience scary.

This is why the testing needs to stop. We don't test for colds and flu.

Variants will happen. The country has fully opened up to international travel and no tests or vaccination proof is required to enter the UK. People are travelling all over the world and coming back to the UK, and travellers from all over the world are visiting us once again.

We are treating covid like any other illness, which we need to do at this stage.

I don't think people are getting Omicron twice. People who got Covid at Christmas quite possibly were infected with Delta and it's definitely possible to have had both Delta and then be infected with Omicron.

I think these two Omicron strains are just really transmissable, so loads of people who either had an earlier strain, or have so far avoided Covid altogether, have been caught by either Omicron 1 or 2. We'd never caught Covid, despite two DC at school, until Omicron came along.

@Juno22

We are treating covid like any other illness, which we need to do at this

Covid-19 is on the list of notifiable diseases

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/notifiable-diseases-and-causative-organisms-how-to-report#list-of-notifiable-diseases

We had our ba1 spike at Christmas and now ba 2 is becoming the dominant strain . Scotland and Ireland have had more ba 2 before England and Wales ( partly explaining why their numbers have shot up first ).

I avoided it at Christmas even though I have never worked from home and was pretty much living my normal life ( with the exception of wearing a mask in supermarkets and on public transport etc).

I'm fully expecting to get hit by this variant . People are out and about with covid and my booster was at the beginning of November.
I definitely know more people who are sicker than they expected to be at the moment. Possibly it's a difference in the variant ? Or maybe a recent booster was helping to keep symptoms milder .

Different variants including Omicron BA.2 and a recombinant form (Deltacron) combining Omicron BA.1 and Delta AY.4

www.livemint.com/science/health/who-warns-of-omicron-delta-recombinant-virus-as-study-finds-1st-solid-evidence-here-s-what-it-is-11646823310138.html

People forget, or don't seem to realise that this is what living with Covid looks like.

A rapidly mutating, highly transmissible virus will never go away and will remain endemic.

We know people who have had Delta can get infected with Omicron so presumably lots of reinfections are from that.

There should be data out there now about reinfections stats from one variant of omicron to the other. Rather than anecdotal as people don’t tend to be told the variant. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything though.

I do agree it’s mainly finding people who haven’t had omicron yet as it’s just so transmissible.

@FinallyHere that's interesting, thank you. I didn't realise it was still a notifiable disease. If people are only testing positive through lateral flow tests done at home I expect many are not reporting it so the number of cases may be even higher.

Just to add to the anecdata, I know lots of people with it at the moment, quite a few 60s and 70s, and none of them seem to feel worse with this variant than what was around at Christmas.

Pretty sure DD has had omicron twice.
Tested positive mid Jan when there was a huge outbreak at school.
Tested positive again this week
Mild symptoms both times thankfully but still incredibly annoying

There's also the massive pool of 40+ million of the population who haven't had covid at all yet... New variants still have plenty of hosts to go.