Well it's never going to be before Christmas anyway, but after Christmas looks a near certainty now
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Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread
- Thread starter GingerBeerMan
- Start date
Well it's never going to be before Christmas anyway, but after Christmas looks a near certainty now
44 dead in Britain from Covid in today’s figures. Tragic, but…….
I know’s it’s Monday but it does seem that Omicron is chasing Delta out of this Country.
Just like in South Africa, our death rate SEEMS to be in terminal decline with this new strain. Only net +14 hospitalisations too.
I know’s it’s Monday but it does seem that Omicron is chasing Delta out of this Country.
Just like in South Africa, our death rate SEEMS to be in terminal decline with this new strain. Only net +14 hospitalisations too.
Er…….Omicron, whilst incredibly transmissible, does not kill more people than the common Flu (+ pneumonia of course). Deadly Delta is now losing the battle of the variants because Omicron is getting to it’s target hosts first.
Perplexing isn’t it. After all this time we still seem to be managing the pandemic by case numbers alone, rather than delving beyond those figures for the deeper context.
pb21
Well-known member
- Apr 23, 2010
- 6,685
I don't think that's true at all. Proposed measures are in relation to anticipated hospitalisations and deaths.
The issue is how serious is the risk and what data are people anticipating the future on. I see numerous tweets and links to articles that it's not really a significant issue and we don't need to really do anything, other than get 'boosted' ASAP.
At the same time the Government are seemingly working on the basis that its worse than that, or at the least it's very reasonable to anticipate its worse than that.
They only have worst case.
Think it’s still a bit early…….….we don’t have the unequivocal data to confirm the mildness quite yet. I think Christmas is a helpful ‘tactical’ reason to delay further measures (knowing compliance would be minimal anyway) whilst we wait for that data. If hospitalisations aren’t showing a steep increase by Boxing Day we’ll see any potential measures delayed further I reckon.
Case numbers have been lessening in their usefulness throughout though…..even more so now with the increasingly weak correlation to serious illness.
highflyer
Well-known member
- Jan 21, 2016
- 2,553
I suspect if they were working to the absolute worst case scenarios we'd be in full lockdown now.
I am assuming they are working to a 'bad end but plausible' scenario. It may well not be so bad. But it definitely COULD be.
Death rates right now are irrelevant - 4 weeks ago we had a tiny % of the omicron cases we have now so we don't yet know how deadly it is or isn't
And it isn't just about how many people get hospitalized or die of Covid - it is what happens if 25% or 30% of the working population - including NHS staff are ill/isolating at the same time. Add a rapidly growing number of additional cases of omicron to deal with on top of existing health backlogs (on top of decades of under investment in our health and social care systems) and disruption to supply chains on (top of existing disruptions) and.a few weeks keeping out heads down and getting boosted feels like a better option than the chaoes and suffering all that scenario brings. For me anyway.
Fingers crossed it won;t happen but I can understand the caution.
While I personally think a lockdown is OTT - restricting large public gatherings especially indoors for a while might be in order however - it does seem to be the destination the government is slowly heading to. Devil is in the detail but in some respects doing it after Christmas is the worst of both worlds as Omicron would have been allowed to spread but still people will be massively inconvenienced.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,014
we have over a month of data from SA that says its mild. that not just wishful thinking, their doctors consistently saying so. i can understand the "we dont know" in early December, they have lower cases than last week, have a quarter the death rate than UK, while some here are predicting its going to lead to 6000 deaths a day. we're persistently more concerned here and in Europe than South Africa, i cant understand why, unless we basicly dont trust the saffers.
I wonder whether there’s a hangover from being so badly burnt from the initial reports on Delta which emerged from India to not listen to other non-European agencies on these things. Might be wrong but you can see why.
It’s the same arrogance that saw our scientists scorning things like mask wearing early in the pandemic and not copying the actions of south east Asian countries who have far more recent experience of epidemics.
Our scientist elites simply don’t trust the data unless it is their own. They are not like business men who have a hunch or are presented with limited data and act on it, they are inherently cautious and only pushed the the lockdown adverse moron-Johnson into the first lockdown after letting Covid take grip in this country and then seeing the bodies pile up in front of them so they could actually count and verify the numbers.
Is it just an arrogant British mentality? Telling ourselves we’re the best all the time in a Johnsonian manner and only relying on our own data rather than the advice of others?
It seems that from the sea of excess deaths his horrific dithering cost us in the first two lockdowns, Johnson is rightly going to avoid another one, but in order to avoid 54+ letters to the 1922 committee rather than any care or duty for the people of Britain.
Perhaps, and I of course understand a degree of caution while we obtain all of the facts, but I’m not sure I can abide by the narrative that we have to lock down NOW, lock down HARD and if we don’t we’re all going to hell in a HAND-BASKET, which is apparently what all of our scientists or saying (or so the media would have us believe).
Realistically, I think the fact that we haven’t announced any further measures today is a suggestion that, as the data slowly trickles through, there are more optimistic signs than pessimistic ones. If there was any conceivable chance that we may hit 2m cases and 6,000 deaths per day, I don’t think even a government this incompetent would suggest waiting to impose harsh lockdowns, Christmas or no Christmas. Any political bad will it might have caused would have been easily justifiable in just a few weeks.
I still have one eye on South Africa, where cases are slowing (even declining in some areas), and the tsunami of hospital admissions and deaths is still yet to show tangible signs of appearing. That’s not to say it 100% won’t, but if it’s going to happen then surely it has to start happening soon.
As has been alluded to above, we may still have the headache of the country’s infrastructure grinding to a halt if a large proportion of workers are ill or isolating, but that situation alone would have to get pretty bad before we consider proactively shutting down whole industries (many of which feel they’re being shut down by proxy anyway) and reintroducing furlough etc.
Rightly or wrongly, and I will absolutely hold my hands up if I turn out to be wrong, I remain cautiously optimistic over Omicron.
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Have you seen the London case data?
Have you seen the London case data?
I have, and it’s big for sure. The questions we don’t yet know the answers to however are; how fast can it keep transmitting at that rate, what percentage of people require hospital care and what percentage of those who do, go onto die?
The first question is probably the one we know the least about right now, and if the South Africa data is likely to be ‘dodgy’ anywhere through the funnel then it’s going to be cases. But in that case, and cases there are in fact way, way higher than even basic extrapolations would assume, then that would be a pointer towards an even lower CFR, perhaps.
If three jabs offer 80% protection against infection (which was initially mooted though I don’t know how robust this figure is), then I would hope we could get on top of it relatively quickly - at least as far as the most vulnerable are concerned.
I've not seen specific omicron figures before - interesting and useful, don't know if it's done every day
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042543/20211220_OS_Daily_Omicron_Overview.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1042543/20211220_OS_Daily_Omicron_Overview.pdf
Trying to work out if there's anything positive in there and feeling a bit of a thicky!
I'm not saying I'm any brighter, but if I've interpreted this chart correctly it is that Omicron appears to be outcompeting Delta and therefore, slowly phasing it out. I may be wrong on that front (that's merely what it 'looks like' to me), but if so that would be good news in so much that you don't have two related but separate pandemics sat on top of one other plus a lower likelihood of "dual infection" which I don't know much about at the scientific level, but doesn't sound pleasant.
Definitely take that with a pinch of salt though.
