Heading into winTier ..... the one we hoped it would be over before...

[dancemom]

New thread Tierers ...

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

Absolutely, the rules rather than COVID per se are in real danger of crashing various services if they're not revised. It should really be treated as any other illness at this point, perhaps asking people to quarantine for the time that they are actually symptomatic as this is the period when you're generally most infectious. All of this '10 days just in case' stuff is going to cause more harm than good and is really just a hang over to the days when people believed it might be possible to stop spread.

Yep and it's not actually in law either for contacts that's the bit which they definitely skirt around! NS will be fuming at BBC article what's law and what's advice!

My DS is terrified of anything near his nose due to the amount of testing we had to do last year/first half of 2021 in order for him to attend nursery etc. I'm not putting him through that again for every toddler cold and bug especially as when he did have covid he had no symptoms! Given a reported milder variant then he had it's a big fat nope from me and we will test ourselves!

The approach down south (LFTs each day for 7 days) seems much less likely to result in system-collapse carnage than our 10 day household contact isolation. I know there's an exemption for "essential workers" in Scotland, but we learnt last year, there are very few jobs that no one notices if they aren't done - not just "essential" ones! And if it's OK for essential workers to work (who are likely to be the ones in contact with the public and coworkers... or they'd generally be able to do it from home! Some exceptions, obviously...) when they are a contact, why isn't it OK for everyone else to work?

At least the English rule is law there now (I assume, as it went through Parliament) and not just guidance. So maybe we could self identify as living in England and follow that one, if the 10 day isolation is just guidance here (though not "optional guidance" I note...whatever that is!)

On the topic of non-optional guidance I'm reminded of this tweet by Ruddy Dunlop:

"At some point, I am sure @scotgov will explain the concept of guidance (ex hypothesi not law and thus not enforceable unless incorporated into regulations) that is “not optional”."

In other words by definition 'guidance' absolutely is optional, but she doesn't want you to realise that and so will use phrases like 'not optional' to try to manipulate people into doing it. Of course once you realise that it's all nonsense it somewhat undermines her credibility. [and yes, she must be spitting chips at the BBC for actually spelling out what is in law and what is not!]

• 4,336 new cases of COVID-19 reported*
• 47,082 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results*
◦ 10.1% of these were positive
• 7 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 33 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 522 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,367,798 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,986,305 have received their second dose, and 2,377,170 have received a third dose or booster.

• Public Health Scotland have made us aware that due to a larger volume of tests being processed, the turnaround time for test results has been impacted, meaning the number of tests being reported on today may be lower than expected.

Strange . 10% of 47,000 cases is more than 4,300.

Good point. I wonder if this is the reinfection anomaly starting to become evident? So people who previously had covid and have tested positive again are not included in the "new cases" figure (but presumably are in the test figure)?

There was some kerfuffle about that earlier in the year, and it was explained why they separate out individual people, each of which can only test positive once (and I've forgotten why that was !) - but at the time the numbers of reinfections were teeny (

Scottish numbers: 18 December 2021
Summary
• 5,917* new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 53,472* new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 12.2% of these were positive
• 9 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 34 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 494 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,369,398 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,988,961 have received their second dose, and 2,436,952 have received a third dose or booster.

• Public Health Scotland note there continues to be an impact on turnaround times between specimens being taken and results reported, due to larger volumes of tests being processed by labs.

Thanks @dancemom
Lowest hospital numbers for months.
Could this be because the boosters are doing what they're supposed to
Most elderly and vulnerable will be at peak immunity by now

It's so bizarre, where's the tsunami? I get it's a timing issue, but surely hospital numbers etc. would have started to surge by now if they were going to ?

It's so bizarre, where's the tsunami? I get it's a timing issue, but surely hospital numbers etc. would have started to surge by now if they were going to ?

It's not just about the numbers in hospital, those that need hospitals need staff to look after them. Have you any idea how many staff are currently in isolation with Covid?

I have. Try not to have any accidents that require hospital treatment.

So at least it's a good thing that there isn't a deluge of new hospital admissions at the minute?

So at least it's a good thing that there isn't a deluge of new hospital admissions at the minute?

Yes. The alternative is frightening.

Agree @ChocolateDeficitDisorder. London has declared a Major Incident due to the number of Omicron cases in their Emergency Services, particularly medical staff.

@rookiemere

It's so bizarre, where's the tsunami? I get it's a timing issue, but surely hospital numbers etc. would have started to surge by now if they were going to ?

I know what you mean. I get that there seem to be issues with data again, but given the apocalyptic language of the last couple of weeks I had expected there'd be more cases than this by now, and a few incidental hospitalisations to be feeding through even if they aren't ill enough to be in ICU. The UK numbers as a whole have actually dropped slightly on yesterday - obviously day on day numbers vary but given we're supposed to get in the sharp upward bit of a peak I'd honestly expected another week or so of 'record cases' before any kind of let up.

Still early days I know, but I'm struggling you see any justification for tighter restrictions right now. Plenty of reason for relaxing isolation rules due to the numbers isolating, but the disease burden really isn't looking that bad right now.

www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past-infection-or-two-vaccine-doses/ar-AARUTAE?ocid=msedgntp

Sorry to burst your bubble.

But @neveradullmoment99 that article says boosters are the key.
And in Scotland the vast majority of over 50s and clinically vulnerable have already had their boosters.
So I'm not sure why it's considered doom and gloom🤷🏼‍♀️
Surely that's good news?

@neveradullmoment99

www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/omicron-largely-evades-immunity-from-past-infection-or-two-vaccine-doses/ar-AARUTAE?ocid=msedgntp

Sorry to burst your bubble.

No bubbles burst here. It was to be expected that reinfections with omicron would be higher than for other variants, which is partly why such a large number of cases is expected. Point is, protection against severe illness seems to be well maintained with prior immunity. All data thus far points in this direction. It doesn't matter if there are a million 'cases' a day (for example) if they are essentially a cold. Strain on ICU will be the key metric.

Would be interesting to know vaccine plus infection immunity and if this acts as booster etc.
I know for delta if you had covid prior to vaccination then actually the protection level against catching it was extremely high about 95%.
There are many who have either had covid prior to vaccine or after.
Technically I'm on 4.....covid and 3 jabs!

I wonder what happens if you get the booster or vaccine whilst you actually have coronavirus as I'm sure there's a fair few symptomless people around.

Yes, I don't think it's surprising that omicron is able to infect people again after previous infection or vaccination. If the most "recognisable" bit of the virus (the spike protein) is so different, then it will get inside us and infect us without our immune system realising what's happening and producing antibodies against it. But once there, when the immune system starts trying to fight it with the resources available (by producing the antibodies made to previous infection by a similar virus) it can be pretty quickly seen off as it's pretty similar, apart from the spike... so we're still much less likely to become seriously ill with 2x jabs, or prior infection.

Presumably if we've just made antibodies to the booster vaccine that are just there, waiting in our blood ready to go, we are much less likely to get infected than if the antibodies have gone and we have to rely on the rest of the immune system remembering and recognising the specific virus, and then producing the antibodies against it.

I think the risk of having the vaccine or booster at the same time as covid, is that the risk of side effects is increased - from either one or the other. And I can't imagine your immune system would be too impressed at the onslaught (probably anecdotally why people having the flu jag and covid booster at the same time have felt much worse the day after than those having one at a time...) Though as you say, there must be loads of people who have been jagged with asymptomatic covid and it doesn't seem actively harmful.

I'm due to have my booster tomorrow. I do find it somewhat ironic that the booster will - as it's happened with DH and most of my friends - result in me feeling a bit rough and sleep deprived with a headache for a couple of day - , much like I would feel with the effects of the Omicron virus that it's protecting me against .

@rookiemare
We had ours in November 3pm the nurse doing it said to take 2 paracetamols around dinner time then another 2 at bedtime. Drink lots of water after having the jag.
Don’t get it in the side you sleep on.
We had our flu jag same time and she was very good saying if you get a sore arm best to only have one arm sore so we got them both in the same arm, none sleep side.
We had no side effects, Pfizer 1&2 Moderna booster.
Just felt hot on the jab site.

Just had my booster rookie and admit to entertaining similar thoughts! I'm so so behind with christmas stuff, house is a tip, had a crazily busy December at work and could do with more energy!

Still, quiet christmas ahead!

• 5,924* new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 47,382* new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 13.9%* of these were positive
• 1 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
• 38 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 504 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,371,171 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,991,879 have received their second dose, and 2,501,033 have received a third dose or booster.
*Public Health Scotland note there continues to be an impact on turnaround times between specimens being taken and results reported, due to larger volumes of tests being processed by labs.

Hospital numbers slightly up on yesterday unfortunately.

Test positivity up too, suggesting @ResilienceWanker's theory that some people will be less likely to test if the household has to isolate is probably right.