China Coronavirus

[Milltown Row2]

A, lad around were we live picked up Corona for a 3rd time, hard to believe. His family would been the first family to pick it up on the original first wave. I presume they been vaccinated.

Well if you can get it a second time you can get it a third or fourth if you're continuing to do the same things expect the same results?

I'd question their behaviours

[thebigfella]

Was just about to say the same. It amazes me how people conveniently forget this minor detail.

Maybe not, but there are inoculation requirements for travel in many cases, and these have varied over time as appropriate, smallpox vaccines were required for travel for 35 years. Flu is not a particular issue at present, but it could be at some time.

Hence if it was a flu pandemic it would be safe to assume that there would be similar controls and restrictions in place.

[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.

I got a home testing kit from Boots yesterday and the chemist said it was only to be used in both nostrils. I thought this was something new as I had previously only seen kits where you swabbed the back of your throat as well as the nostril,  You reckon this would be a step back instead?

Don't know.

In the US, it's been nostrils all the way through in my experience (and I've been tested a lot through work).

But go with what your local doctors/public health authorities say and what the manufacturers of the kits recommend. They're the ones who design and test them.

[armaghniac]

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.

I got a home testing kit from Boots yesterday and the chemist said it was only to be used in both nostrils. I thought this was something new as I had previously only seen kits where you swabbed the back of your throat as well as the nostril,  You reckon this would be a step back instead?

Don't know.

In the US, it's been nostrils all the way through in my experience (and I've been tested a lot through work).

But go with what your local doctors/public health authorities say and what the manufacturers of the kits recommend. They're the ones who design and test them.

Nostrils are usual for these kits and that worked well for variants before Omicron.
They now think that the big O lives in the throat and that sometimes these tests miss it, so they may design new tests. However, you can only use the one you have as instructed.

[Gmac]

Every second person I talk too has been sick or tested positive in the last 3 weeks vaccinated or unvaccinated most have mild symptoms one or two stayed in bed for a couple of days , the infection rate is not driving up hospital numbers like this type of positive rate would have last year , this variant is bypassing vaccines , vaccine mandates ,vaccine green passes , lockdowns and curfews , the virus is  telling the world none of that stuff works the virus is moving through the world and we are nearly all going to get it and at this stage it's mild I just had it . Doubling down on policies that have failed is not the answer , we need to go back to normal asap the virus has and will do what it wants if the last 2 years don't show you that you have no common sense (which is in short supply worldwide)
Mental illness the next or maybe current pandemic.

[Main Street]

Safe to say that the actual infection rate is at least twice as much.

[seafoid]

Omicron is far more transmissible than Delta but ICU's don't seem to be under any pressure. The immunocompromised are the most vulnerable.

[Cunny Funt]

To give some perspective on ROI situation

2022
January 9th

Cases previous 30 days: roughly 400,000
In hospital 984
ICU 83

2021
January 9th

Cases previous 30 days : roughly 40,000
In hospital 1352
In ICU 120

The stays are much shorter in hospital now and 83 figure in ICU is mostly delta than the dominant omicron variant.

[Sportacus]

It turns out vaccines/boosters work.

[RadioGAAGAA]

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?

Essentially an end to restrictions and testing for most.
Still massive pressure on healthcare - and will be for years as they work to claw back the lost treatment time for others.

It'll become another viral infection, not as lethal as some, but perhaps more infectious than most.

[RadioGAAGAA]

A, lad around were we live picked up Corona for a 3rd time, hard to believe. His family would been the first family to pick it up on the original first wave. I presume they been vaccinated.

and how did his body react? Fight it off quickly enough or did it do a serious number on him?

[RadioGAAGAA]

I seen this puff piece in the beeb today espousing the benefits of lateral flows.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59895258


Apparently unlike the journo who scribbled the shite - I read the paper by Irene Peterson et al several months back and thought it extremely poor science then - nothing in between has changed my mind.
This statement:

A peer-reviewed paper she co-authored in October found they were 80% effective at detecting any level of active Covid infection and even better at picking up the most infectious individuals.

Is outright wrong. The paper "found" nothing of the sort as the paper was a massive exercise in philosophy.

Essentially it took the form of: "Lets make a tenuous hypothesis - fire a few gigantic assumptions at it and hey presto - we're sorted."

No one has yet to do a full clinic workup* on lateral flow tests. While comparing them to PCR is apples and oranges - given the lack of that workup - then comparing to PCR is the only thing there is. Making massive leaps of faith to conclusions of such importance is very irresponsible.

*looking at live viral particles only - which means trying to grow from samples on a petrii etc. It may turn out they are quite good. But a false negative rate of up to 50% is not good enough and no amount of bluster can change that.



If we're at the point of going to lateral flow tests only - we'd be safer stopping altogether as they are nigh on useless. Even if they did catch 70% of infectious folks at some point - their small sensitivity window means that person will have been infectious for a period prior to detection. With Omicron that will mean infecting at least one other person. So R would still be 1 for those that it did work on. Obviously those that it didn't will just go spreading it everywhere.

[Saffrongael]

Yeah I've been thinking how to we get to the other end of this ? Particularly in the workplace when people have to self isolate either as contacts or positive themselves. Reduce isolation period ? Is that a risk as you may still be infectious. But it's apparent now that thousands in the workforce, especially NHS are being taken out of action and are not sick, or unable to work in the normal sense. I don't have the answers, just curious what people think is the way out ?

[seafoid]

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?

Essentially an end to restrictions and testing for most.
Still massive pressure on healthcare - and will be for years as they work to claw back the lost treatment time for others.

It'll become another viral infection, not as lethal as some, but perhaps more infectious than most.

This is not an end state. The process of dominant variant is random. The next one could be far worse.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Yeah I've been thinking how to we get to the other end of this ? Particularly in the workplace when people have to self isolate either as contacts or positive themselves. Reduce isolation period ? Is that a risk as you may still be infectious. But it's apparent now that thousands in the workforce, especially NHS are being taken out of action and are not sick, or unable to work in the normal sense. I don't have the answers, just curious what people think is the way out ?

Why bother to isolate when 90% of your co-workers have had it in the past few weeks?

We'll reach that point fairly shortly I'd think.