SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

What I'm getting at is, there seems to be a huge gap in research as to "infected/viral RNA" vs "infects others/contagious" which strikes me as somewhat important.

We know from other coronaviruses that the RNA is still viral long after the infectiousness period, yet we seem to be testing for one thing to determine the other??

Edit to add: And the RNA doesn't need to viral for the virus to be infectious. Perhaps it's infectious before the RNA ribosome sequence/entry/whatever it is that I don't quite understand how it works yet.
 
Looks like the government scientists are about to release a report to confirm that omicron is milder in most people because of immunity and the actual virus itself.

Still huge caution on hospitalizations due to the rapid spread but some positive!
 
Kaos said:
So apparently the isolation period has been reduced to 7 days assuming you can produce a negative LFT on day 6 and 7.

I'm due to be out of isolation on Christmas Day (fully recovered now) and have tested negative this morning. Does that mean if I produce another negative LFT tomorrow I'm out of the woods? Or do this new reduced restrictions only apply to new cases and I'm still obliged to do my 10 days?
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They are still asking you to be very cautious about who you mix with once you come out of isolation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ut-to-seven-days-for-jabbed-people-in-england

Those who leave self-isolation on or after day seven are “strongly advised” to limit close contact with other people in crowded or poorly ventilated spaces, work from home and minimise contact with anyone who is at higher risk of severe illness if infected with Covid-19, the agency added.
 
Mickeza said:
From Boxing Day Wales going to rule of six at pubs, cinemas and restaurants with a return of social distancing and mask wearing in all public places (already had the latter). This is in addition to all sports not having crowds and nightclubs being closed. No restrictions on household mixing - just a legal limit on 30 people max meeting indoors. If you’re a close contact but fully vaccinated you don’t need to isolate - however they haven’t gone down the route of reducing isolation to 7 days like in England - this is a mistake in my opinion. The more information that comes in regarding hospitalisations the more I maintain the big risk of how fast this spreads isn’t the number of admissions - it’s the number of staff isolating off work at the same time which will impact essential services including health. No word on how long they last - it shouldn’t be more than 3 weeks in my eyes. I’m assuming the purpose is to spread it over 4 weeks rather than 2 to reduce the strain on Health and the number isolating from work.
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My favourite one from Drakeford was the fine for employees if you're not working from home without a good reason.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
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SAGE are total doom mongers, who will always find something to whinge about.

I’m not convinced by the idea that boosters prolong the pandemic. Vaccines no longer suppress transmission to any great degree. They’re all about avoiding hospitals getting overloaded and anywhere that hasn’t been extensively vaccinated by now will have a large proportion of their population partially protected by prior infection. A lot of the poorer countries with younger populations can get through these waves without much vaccinations, never mind boosters, SA’s omicron wave being a very recent, very obvious example.

And that’s without even getting into the misguided idea that if, say, the Uk decided against a booster program then all those doses could/would end up in the arms of people in the developing world instead.
 
rpitroda said:
I don’t think decisions are made on worst case. Decisions will be made on the most probable case, with a view on the pessimistic scenarios to look for indicators that those pessimistic scenarios are coming to fruition. It is more important of course to factor in worst case rather than best case, because the nature of Covid means that if the worst case is realised and you don’t move early enough, it is calamitous. But they won’t just look at those in isolation.

The problem with the media though is more inherent than Covid specific. Media gets money, ultimately, by traffic on its websites. To get traffic it needs, broadly speaking, either unique and informative content which draws in readers on a more consistent basis as their “go to” news outlet. Or it needs splashing headlines to draw in the casual browser. A headline which stuns by saying “thousands could die per day” is obviously going to get more clicks than something more factual. The second issue is then that many people will actually just read that headline and that’ll be that. So even if that article does go on to say it’s a worst case scenario and not the most probable, it’s irrelevant.
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I mostly agree. I think modellers could do themselves a favour by clearly stating the probability of each model…. And the media have to be more sensible.
 
stw2022 said:
High case numbers but 35% increase on last week seems like it’s slowing
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If you only had a bit of a cough would you take a test on 22nd December, knowing if its positive you miss Christmas? This week's case numbers won't mean much.
 
11101 said:
If you only had a bit of a cough would you take a test on 22nd December, knowing if its positive you miss Christmas? This week's case numbers won't mean much.
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Yeah no doubt that’s a factor. I do think many are being more cautious too though - behavioural change before Xmas will definitely play a role. I suspect after Boxing Day it will go nuts.
 
Listening to Radio 4 earlier and 25% of current hospitalisations in London are where coronavirus isn’t the primary cause of the admission
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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To me it opens up the conversation for an uncomfortable question for many...would it be better for those who were <40 and double-jabbed to have gotten a minor infection from Omicron, rather than getting their booster?

There was already evidence that "super-immunity" provided a better mix of long and short-term protection than vaccines alone, the risk of hospitalisation for that age group was already very, very low with Delta, and there was good reason to believe Omicron was going to be even milder when the boosters were ramped up for that age group. Now the evidence is just strengthening for all three.

Even just at a societal level, it might be the case that this time next year population immunity would have been stronger, and therefore a lower risk to the NHS, if more young people got that mild infection now instead of evading that mild infection through the short-term antibody boost.

Maybe boosted immunity will last longer than expected, or maybe the virus will only get milder from here on...but if not, I personally think we could look back on it as a mistake from being overly cautious and short-termist.
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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Might be if it was remotely accurate. The quoted text in her report seems to be from an unknown source which doesn't correlate with the report she's reporting on? :|
 
Very impressed with the NHS. I guy I know with quite minor symptoms has tested positive and been called in to hospital for preventative IV treatment. He takes immune-suppressant meds for a skin condition. The hospital contacted him out of the blue as it were. Good stuff.
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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Probably being stupid here but I don’t understand how points 2 and 4 can be true at the same time. How can you be 15-20% less likely to require hospitalisation from Omicron compared to Delta, and also be at a similar risk of hospitalisation for both Omicron and Delta?

Could anyone explain what I’m missing? Are they saying that, given vaccination, this 15-20% decrease is not statistically significant enough and should be considered “similar risk”?
 
NYAS said:
Probably being stupid here but I don’t understand how points 2 and 4 can be true at the same time. How can you be 15-20% less likely to require hospitalisation from Omicron compared to Delta, and also be at a similar risk of hospitalisation for both Omicron and Delta?

Could anyone explain what I’m missing? Are they saying that, given vaccination, this 15-20% decrease is not statistically significant enough and should be considered “similar risk”?
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Point 2 refers to all people with infection, point 4 refers to people to who have been infected and have had two doses.
 
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Brwned said:
To me it opens up the conversation for an uncomfortable question for many...would it be better for those who were <40 and double-jabbed to have gotten a minor infection from Omicron, rather than getting their booster?

There was already evidence that "super-immunity" provided a better mix of long and short-term protection than vaccines alone, the risk of hospitalisation for that age group was already very, very low with Delta, and there was good reason to believe Omicron was going to be even milder when the boosters were ramped up for that age group. Now the evidence is just strengthening for all three.

Even just at a societal level, it might be the case that this time next year population immunity would have been stronger, and therefore a lower risk to the NHS, if more young people got that mild infection now instead of evading that mild infection through the short-term antibody boost.

Maybe boosted immunity will last longer than expected, or maybe the virus will only get milder from here on...but if not, I personally think we could look back on it as a mistake from being overly cautious and short-termist.
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One thing to note is the third shot is to maintain a high level of antibodies rather than because immunity has waned. Antibodies usually decline this was as memory cells take over the job. In this case it isn't that the memory cells have stopped working well, just that we don't want the increased pressure on the health system due to the lag between infection and memory cells kicking in to produce antibodies. This is especially the case with Omicron as it seems that active antibodies are the key to reducing the severity of disease, more so than previous variants. So trading the slight benefit of vaccine plus infection vs vaccine plus booster by restricting booster availability would further pressure the health service and increase severe disease.
 
esmufc07 said:
This is very good news, right?

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Just read the IC report, the Scotland report and the SA ones, and I admit I'm struggling to interpret the summary of the IC document. The numbers in their summary tables look better to me than they do to them and as yet I don't quite understand why!

At any rate, the reports from the UK, Denmark and SA continue to be reassuring. If that holds true, then it's not going to be nice as case rates rise, but it might not be as scary (for the UK and similar high immunity countries) as it looked when we first saw the infection rate reports. Fingers crossed, eh.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Vaccines no longer suppress transmission to any great degree.
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That's a big call. Given that airborne viruses are almost universally spread far more by highly symptomatic people I'd be very suprised if the suppression of severe disease didn't have a major correlation with reduced transmission.
 
Australian cases spiked to 8k yesterday. Mainly in NSW which is likely due to us opening up far too fast. QR check in codes now to be reintroduced a week after they were removed but our idiots in charge (NSW and Federally) are not going to bring mask wearing indoors back again against the medical advice. I can't wait for the next election to punish these imbeciles.
 
Wibble said:
NSW considering charging the unvaccinated for covid hospital admission https://www.theguardian.com/austral...charging-unvaccinated-patients-for-covid-care
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Now for someone who has never liked the idea of Covid passports in order to do normal things in the country you live, and has been annoyed at how they’ve been pushed despite no evidence they actually make a difference; this is actually something I could get behind.
It’d mean those not wanting to be vaccinated could live as normal, but they’d seriously have to put their money where their mouth is if they were gonna face a hefty hospital bill should they require care.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Now for someone who has never liked the idea of Covid passports in order to do normal things in the country you live, and has been annoyed at how they’ve been pushed despite no evidence they actually make a difference; this is actually something I could get behind.
It’d mean those not wanting to be vaccinated could live as normal, but they’d seriously have to put their money where their mouth is if they were gonna face a hefty hospital bill should they require care.
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Horrible precedent to set where does it end, fat people, smokers, drinkers.
 
So they should charge smokers and anyone who drinks too much? Maybe anyone who does drugs as well.

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Now for someone who has never liked the idea of Covid passports in order to do normal things in the country you live, and has been annoyed at how they’ve been pushed despite no evidence they actually make a difference; this is actually something I could get behind.
It’d mean those not wanting to be vaccinated could live as normal, but they’d seriously have to put their money where their mouth is if they were gonna face a hefty hospital bill should they require care.
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Wibble said:
That's a big call. Given that airborne viruses are almost universally spread far more by highly symptomatic people I'd be very suprised if the suppression of severe disease didn't have a major correlation with reduced transmission.
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Severe disease means someone who needs to be admitted to hospital (usually for oxygen) You can cough your guts up for a week and still be considered mild disease. And let’s not forget that someone so sick they need oxygen is less likely to infect a load of people than some idiot with mild symptoms who goes into work/the pub throughout their illness.
 
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