China Coronavirus

[From the Bunker]

When will vax passports be done away with?

Be a long while yet if ever i'd say.... Bigger question is when will 2 jabs be considered not vaccinated..

Anyone with only 2 jabs or less be considered not vaccinated in February and there will be a plethora of new restrictions for them! Europe has a grand plan for all of us.

[JoG2]

When will vax passports be done away with?

Be a long while yet if ever i'd say.... Bigger question is when will 2 jabs be considered not vaccinated..

Would the 2020 Flu jab cover you for the 2021 Flu? You have to be taking the hand with the majority of your posts re Covid

[armaghniac]

When will vax passports be done away with?

Be a long while yet if ever i'd say.... Bigger question is when will 2 jabs be considered not vaccinated..

For travel the EU will only accept 2 jabs for 9 months. I got my updated certificate today. Not sure what will happen with hospitality, they may discontinue it coming into the summer when the cases die down.

[Gmac]

GaaGaa as a voice of reason on here whats your outlook overall now. Cautiously optimistic or have we a bit to go yet...

the voice of reason ? Dumping unvaccinated patients out the back of the hospital is reasonable?

[David McKeown]

Omicron infects more people, but a smaller proportion of them go to hospital and if they do they tend not to stay as long or go on to ICU. However, because Omicron infects more people it still puts hospitals under pressure.
They think that Omicron is more effective in the nose and throat, which makes it more transmissible, but not as effective in the lungs etc, which is what kills you.

I just don't understand if it's said to be milder because it's less likely to leave someone it infects (chosen at random from amongst those effected) needing treatment or dying. Or if it's said to be milder because the risk to a specific individual is lower. Ie delta would have killed them but Omicron wouldn't.

The risk to an individual is lower. The aggregate effect might not be so different owing to more people getting it.

Well theres obvious benefits to that and I am not disputing what you are saying but where does the evidence for that come from.  I havent been able to find anything peer reviewed on that.  Everything I have seen says less people who get it are hospitalised or killed but thats obviously not the same thing if its more infectious.

I also note this from the other day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59901547

My concern is that all this talk of it being milder leads to a carte blanche attitude form those most at risk and therefore the benefits of a supposedly milder disease are contradicted by human behaviour.  As I say I trust and hope you are correct I just havent seen research on that point

[J70]

I've a close relative in the infectious diseases field, and they say that nasal swabbing is proving inadequate when it comes to testing for Omicron.

Throat swabbing may start to be incorporated for rapid tests as its more likely to detect it early on. Apparently Omicron affects the throat and renders the patient infectious a couple of days before it moves to the nose.

Not sure what that will mean for home testing though.

[RadioGAAGAA]

GaaGaa as a voice of reason on here whats your outlook overall now. Cautiously optimistic or have we a bit to go yet...

Within the UK - I think it might be all over by Easter.

ROI will be slower, no strong thoughts on it.

International travel is entirely another matter of course and even harder to predict.

[RadioGAAGAA]

GaaGaa as a voice of reason on here whats your outlook overall now. Cautiously optimistic or have we a bit to go yet...

the voice of reason ? Dumping unvaccinated patients out the back of the hospital is reasonable?

Letting cancer patients miss out on time-critical treatment because of the stupidity of others is reasonable?

[RadioGAAGAA]

I also note this from the other day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59901547

Recent studies suggest that Omicron is less likely to make people seriously ill than previous Covid variants.

But the record number of people catching it has left health systems under severe pressure, said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Does that not explain it for you?

[JoG2]

GaaGaa as a voice of reason on here whats your outlook overall now. Cautiously optimistic or have we a bit to go yet...

the voice of reason ? Dumping unvaccinated patients out the back of the hospital is reasonable?

Letting cancer patients miss out on time-critical treatment because of the stupidity of others is reasonable?

Wasn't that long ago that cancer patients missing out on treatment due to Covid was front and centre in the anti-brigades thoughts and prayers. They were extremely passionate and vocal on this subject. Compassion evaporated??

[PadraicHenryPearse]

GaaGaa as a voice of reason on here whats your outlook overall now. Cautiously optimistic or have we a bit to go yet...

Within the UK - I think it might be all over by Easter.

ROI will be slower, no strong thoughts on it.

International travel is entirely another matter of course and even harder to predict.

when you say "all over" what do you mean? an end to the requirements to have restrictions? an end to pressure on our healthcare systems? am end for the need for testing? an end to taking any other action than we do for other viruses?

[armaghniac]

Wasn't that long ago that cancer patients missing out on treatment due to Covid was front and centre in the anti-brigades thoughts and prayers. They were extremely passionate and vocal on this subject. Compassion evaporated??

The reference to cancer patients was one of the most disgusting aspects of these anti vax anti lockdown crowd. The pretended to be worried about such people while actually opposing things that would reduce the spread of COvid, which was a direct threat to people receiving cancer treatment and was crowding cancer patients out of hospitals.

[David McKeown]

I also note this from the other day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-59901547

Recent studies suggest that Omicron is less likely to make people seriously ill than previous Covid variants.

But the record number of people catching it has left health systems under severe pressure, said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Does that not explain it for you?

No because I can't find the data to support that. I can find data to say of the people infected fewer are likely to end up hospitalised or needing ICU but that's not the same thing. What I mean is what I've seen is say Joe Bloggs gets Delta along with 49 others in a town but is the only one to die. His chances of dying if infected on a basic statistical reading were 2%. If however say the same Joe Bloggs got Omicron along with 99 others but was the only one to die then his chances were 1%. In that regard it looks like Omicron is only half as deadly.

However in reality it's exactly as deadly to Joe Bloggs it's only half as deadly to a random infected person. The reason for this being that Omicron is now infecting people who are low to no risk that Delta wouldn't have infected.

My worry is that we are being told it's milder because it statistically is to those who were unlikely to die or be hospitalised by delta anyway. However it remains very concerning for high risk individuals.

I should say I'm not suggesting such data doesn't exist just that I haven't seen it yet

[Rois]

But how would you confirm this? You can't test dead people to see if they wouldn't have died if they'd had omicron. There's no measure (I don't think anyway) to say that once people reach a certain level of sickness, once they are a certain age, weight or or have a certain inherent weakness, they are going die whatever the variant.
In your example, maybe Joe is very weak and would die whatever attacked him. But only Joe - and that's the point of the statistical analysis - Joe hasn't been joined by anyone else, and likely would have  been with the delta variant. Hence, I don't think it is unreasonable to say that the variant is less deadly, unless you discount statistical analysis altogether.

[David McKeown]

But how would you confirm this? You can't test dead people to see if they wouldn't have died if they'd had omicron. There's no measure (I don't think anyway) to say that once people reach a certain level of sickness, once they are a certain age, weight or or have a certain inherent weakness, they are going die whatever the variant.
In your example, maybe Joe is very weak and would die whatever attacked him. But only Joe - and that's the point of the statistical analysis - Joe hasn't been joined by anyone else, and likely would have  been with the delta variant. Hence, I don't think it is unreasonable to say that the variant is less deadly, unless you discount statistical analysis altogether.

Rois. I think you've explained my point better than I have there. Is there a way to really tell if it's milder, I'm not an expert so I have no idea. If not my concern is that all the talk about this milder variant may not actually be that good a thing. Particularly if it encourages those most at risk to adopt a more cavalier attitude of well sure this new one is less likely to kill me so who cares if I get it.

That's my major concern about Omicron.

That said I am hoping that I am wrong and there is some way of telling and that data exists to support that and that I just haven't seen it or haven't understood it properly yet.