The Coronavirus Thread

[Sean Hayden]

Shit, you're tempting the gods lak. You're not allowed to die now. It'll only serve to reinforce a tendency towards the superstitious-- [/poem for Tero] --best not to say anything about getting back to normal at all.

--//--

I imagine Florida is Florida still. --no mandates or school closings, same as here

[JimC]

Even if omicron is considerably less harmful than all other variants, it just means that the percentage of hospitalisations and deaths will be reduced, perhaps even greatly reduced, but with the number of cases expected (due to its high transmissibility and tendency to break through immunisation), those numbers will still be significant. What all governments are worried about is the strain on health services...

[Sean Hayden]

It's a valid concern. But it seems difficult to pindown who's got the right perspective with regard to so many potential harms competing for our attention.

[JimC]

Perhaps the silver lining might be that all the mild cases of omicron (and there will be lots of those), when they recover, should have a significant degree of immunity to subsequent infections...

[Tero]

How soon till we are like bats?

[Brian Peacock]

It's a numbers game. It always has been. UK data is suggesting a bit of another Delta surge. Vaccination rates are good, but what immunity means in terms of the O-variant is still being worked out. The natural R of Omicron is somewhere in the region of 2-5. Though Covid mortailty rates remain relatively steady, hospitalisations are creeping up, and we should all know how exponential increases work by now. Add with govt underfunding over a long period and staffing shortfalls in nursing and medicine (plus the supply-side issues every country seems to be experiencing atm), then even a short bump in hospitalisations could have a severe effect on outcomes along with knock-ons across the health and social care sector.

[Scot Dutchy]

Our data is now and always has been dodgy about infection rates but now with self testing is totally useless. Hospitalisations has dropped by a third also in IC's is reflecting this drop.
We finally have a new cabinet so we will see some new faces and advice. The dictator from the RIVM is trying his best to scare people by saying it is the same strength as the Delta one which it is clearly not. It is only highly infectious. Once again plenty of fairy data flying around.

[Brian Peacock]

The Omicron Covid variant has been found to multiply about 70 times quicker than the original and Delta versions of coronavirus in tissue samples taken from the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs, in laboratory experiments that could help explain its rapid transmission.

The study, by a team from the University of Hong Kong, also found that the new variant grew 10 times slower in lung tissue, which the authors said could be an indicator of lower disease severity.

Michael Chan Chi-wai, who led the work, said the result needed to be interpreted with caution because severe disease is determined not only by how quickly the virus replicates but also by a person’s immune response and, in particular, whether the immune system goes into overdrive, causing a so-called cytokine storm.

“It is also noted that by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic,” he said. “Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from the Omicron variant id likely to be very significant.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ial-tissue

[Scot Dutchy]

Of course dictators will never admit anything and play on the safe negative side. What is significant?

Does anyone remember the Hong Kong flue? The schools never closed. At the height of the flue my class was down to the four out forty of us. I never got it. The number of deaths or infections was seldom mentioned as you saw it for yourself. These days numbers are quoted data by untrustworthy governments (ours only rate at 32% trust) which are taken as genuine.
There meant to be overfull test centres and overflowing A&E's. Never seen them.
We have now a new cabinet and I will bet the numbers will drop.

[Brian Peacock]

Of course dictators will never admit anything and play on the safe negative side. What is significant?

When did you become anti-science?

[Scot Dutchy]

Of course dictators will never admit anything and play on the safe negative side. What is significant?

When did you become anti-science?

Just how have you extracted that from my comments? Have you stopped questioning especially in the political social fields. This is the very grey area of care.

[Brian Peacock]

Of course dictators will never admit anything and play on the safe negative side. What is significant?

When did you become anti-science?

Just how have you extracted that from my comments? Have you stopped questioning especially in the political social fields. This is the very grey area of care.

The post you appeared to be commenting on was a report about some preliminary research findings. The appropriate way to question that is on the basis of the science.

[Scot Dutchy]

This is not plain findings now is it? These findings are against a socio-political background which is where it has been placed by so many untrustworthy governments. No report on Covid does not have a political tinge.

[Brian Peacock]

Yes Scot. Everything is political, and anything political is corrupt.

[pErvinalia]

It's chumocracies all the way down.