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

Boris has no real choice but to lie now as he’s promised us Christmas. If he says now that he will shut down on Boxing Day every one will go out and go party like it’s 99.

The problem here however is by Christmas Eve cases maybe near or over 200,000 and it will take balls of steel not to do anything then. If any of us were prime minister we’d be sweating like pigs from today’s data, part of me just wants witty to tweet a lockdown and watch boris squirm.
 
11101 said:
Those numbers dont make sense? 98% of the infected were vaccinated with Moderna or Pfizer, but 58/75 infected had one of them? That's 77%.

And it's saying that 6 of the 25 non infected were unvaccinated, whereas only 1 of 75 infected was unvaccinated ie there is less chance of catching it if unvaccinated.
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Sorry about that and thanks for pointing out! It should have read that among those who had two doses, 58/75 had one of them. That was in the article and lost in translation :) There are also some with 3 doses I guess.
 
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.14.472719v1

grim. every word is grim.

one question, which doctors/other biologists can answer - they tested neutralization from serum and some cloned antibodies. could there be another antibody which might still be viable against the variant? (i'm thinking of the long-term immune response stuff that i know nothing about).
 
dal said:
Boris has no real choice but to lie now as he’s promised us Christmas. If he says now that he will shut down on Boxing Day every one will go out and go party like it’s 99.

The problem here however is by Christmas Eve cases maybe near or over 200,000 and it will take balls of steel not to do anything then. If any of us were prime minister we’d be sweating like pigs from today’s data, part of me just wants witty to tweet a lockdown and watch boris squirm.
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If any of us were prime minister we'd just hand over decisions on public health to those qualified to make decisions on public health.
 
Simbo said:
If any of us were prime minister we'd just hand over decisions on public health to those qualified to make decisions on public health.
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He could argue he’s following the science with the booster. It will be a million cases by the end of the week, could rip through half the UK in a fortnight, in all honesty locking down after Christmas is far far too late, hopefully it’s mild, that’s the great hope right now, it’s almost like survival of the fittest live on TV.
 
This has come at an absolutely horrible time. Even if it is mild, at the rate it’s doubling there will be some horrific headlines in the next few days and Christmas is a week tomorrow. That’s about when we will see the real death data start to come through, right? Or at least between Christmas and new year. If illness severity is worse than currently believed he’s toast.
 
Does anybody remember the name of that Harvard lady on Twitter who uses Lego and napkin maths to explain things to idiots like moi? Seem to have unfollowed her.

edit: found it. https://twitter.com/nataliexdean
 
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Ady87 said:
This has come at an absolutely horrible time. Even if it is mild, at the rate it’s doubling there will be some horrific headlines in the next few days and Christmas is a week tomorrow. That’s about when we will see the real death data start to come through, right? Or at least between Christmas and new year. If illness severity is worse than currently believed he’s toast.
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Yeah probably between Christmas and New Year, maybe just after. It’s normally about three weeks after a big increase in cases that you see the hospitalisations rise as well. Hopefully this will not be the case this time but to be honest I think that’s wishful thinking
 
Did anyone think this thread would be as long as this when Covid started? Almost two years in now.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Aye, the one who doesn’t think lockdowns in Europe especially, and now has a tonne of data to back that up, have tended make much difference with the long term death rate per capita, and thinks they have too often been used incorrectly (not as part of an elimination strategy like Aus/NZ) and long before they are a last resort is the weirdo.
I’m the weirdo for wanting the World to learn to deal with Covid without locking healthy people in their homes and to understand that they aren’t always necessary to keep hospitals from overflowing, especially now with the help of the vaccines.
I’m the weirdo for wanting my company to continue running for more than a few months and not constantly at risk of bankruptcy.
I’m the weirdo for wanting to be able to visit family and friends in other European countries more regularly than once every two years again.
I’m the weirdo for not wanting us to utterly cripple our economies further, something that people have completely ignored by asking for more lockdowns. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface on our long term cost for these lockdowns.
I’m the weirdo because I’m well aware if the side effects, now well documented, of lockdowns and want them avoided and used only as a last resort.

And for what it’s worth, it’s never been RAB from the cafs opinion, it’s been the opinion of the experts over here, that long term these lockdowns that aren’t used Aus-esque and not as a last resort, would ultimately make little difference and were simply kicking the can down the road. They’ve been bloody well proven correct.
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That's a good post - I think lockdowns, especially in the US have not been very effective.

http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

You can play around with the data and highlight different states/territories, across time, but I think masks and vaccines are much more effective than lockdowns
 
As an aside, I absolutely hate the crowds all over New York City these days. The city is full of tourists (Europe, Midwest), and it absolutely sucks. My work commute which is 5 Ave through Time Square to Columbus Circle is basically 3x longer what it used be just this summer.

Bring back the lockdowns (for outsiders only phleez)

:-)
 
Klopper76 said:
Did anyone think this thread would be as long as this when Covid started? Almost two years in now.
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Thought the vaccinations would kill it off, but didn’t foresee how the variants would drag it out. Now think a super all conquering vaccination is the only answer which could take years to develop and administer.
 
Got my booster later this morning. My pregnant wife is booked in too.

I hope she’s ok after getting it - the tin foil hat posts re pregnant women have got under my skin and I feel a bit sick about it all.
 
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How long did the Spanish Flu pandemic last, and how did that end up getting resolved? You never hear of it these days and surely science has moved on since then.
 
So what's the out now? Vaccines last year were the answer. Now we have the vaccines nothing has changed

How does this actually end? If it is a case of just living with it/continuing as normal, then when does that actually start? Can't keep doing this every few months
 
If you look at how much more mutated Omicron is compared to previous variants...

FFJsarsUUAUpNLv

Link

And you check the genetic distance of Omicron compared to the rest...
1920px-Omicron_SARS-CoV-2_radial_distance_tree_2021-Dec-01.svg.png


It's tempting to think of this current wave as almost a different pandemic of a different disease. That's why the vaccine advice has changed so suddenly. We're not dealing with the same thing that hit us in March 2020.

I've read some reports suggesting that Omicron is an unholy union between the Delta variant + the Common Cold. That makes sense (to me as a layman) as we now seem to be facing a wave that shares some of the worst traits of both.
 
LARulz said:
So what's the out now? Vaccines last year were the answer. Now we have the vaccines nothing has changed

How does this actually end? If it is a case of just living with it/continuing as normal, then when does that actually start? Can't keep doing this every few months
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Omicron is almost a different disease that we're dealing with.

The more widespread Covid is, the more it mutates. And the more it mutates, the more difficult it is to pin down and eradicate with targetted treatment.

The 'end' is to try and bring down the numbers so that mutations become less frequent. Once that happens, we can deal with a single enemy rather than multiple ones that can keep evading our traps.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that Omicron is so different from the rest that if we can deal with that, we can hopefully deal with anything.
 
Dante said:
Omicron is almost a different disease that we're dealing with.

The more widespread Covid is, the more it mutates. And the more it mutates, the more difficult it is to pin down and eradicate with targetted treatment.

The 'end' is to try and bring down the numbers so that mutations become less frequent. Once that happens, we can deal with a single enemy rather than multiple ones that can keep evading our traps.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that Omicron is so different from the rest that if we can deal with that, we can hopefully deal with anything.
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Thanks. I know it's early and I imagine everything now is a better safe than sorry approach but last I heard (may be out of date) was that this variant is, for the most part, less harmful compared to others. But is clearly quicker to spread. Is that ultimately not what people kept saying is ideal? Faster to spread and become dominant but less harmful?

I understand the less harmful nature comes from people being vaccinated and having antibodies, so it's not the same for everyone but still

Sorry if these are dumb questions covered before but just wanted to understand what I'm missing to see a bigger picture
 
Dante said:
If you look at how much more mutated Omicron is compared to previous variants...

FFJsarsUUAUpNLv

Link

And you check the genetic distance of Omicron compared to the rest...
1920px-Omicron_SARS-CoV-2_radial_distance_tree_2021-Dec-01.svg.png


It's tempting to think of this current wave as almost a different pandemic of a different disease. That's why the vaccine advice has changed so suddenly. We're not dealing with the same thing that hit us in March 2020.

I've read some reports suggesting that Omicron is an unholy union between the Delta variant + the Common Cold. That makes sense (to me as a layman) as we now seem to be facing a wave that shares some of the worst traits of both.
Click to expand...
The bold section interests me, as I have read varying reports that state that the Omicron variant potentially came from a human who had both the common cold and SARS cov2, or potentially from an animal host.
If an animal host, there's a lot to say about it being a new virus completely separate from what's gone before, which is a warning sign for the future!

Early signs from what I've read are though that due to the ease of transmissibility this variant does seem to be more mild in terms of symptoms and illness, although I understand that data is still being collected, this looks to be a good sign.
 
Shakesey said:
Turns out we all built up some form of immunity according to Pogue. We call it H1N1 now. Just a normal seasonal flu.
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I wonder whether we are stopping this from happening this time by having people wear masks, wash their hands more, limit contact etc?
 
LARulz said:
So what's the out now? Vaccines last year were the answer. Now we have the vaccines nothing has changed

How does this actually end? If it is a case of just living with it/continuing as normal, then when does that actually start? Can't keep doing this every few months
Click to expand...
I thought this was just the new normal?
 
Dante said:
If you look at how much more mutated Omicron is compared to previous variants...

FFJsarsUUAUpNLv

Link

And you check the genetic distance of Omicron compared to the rest...
1920px-Omicron_SARS-CoV-2_radial_distance_tree_2021-Dec-01.svg.png


It's tempting to think of this current wave as almost a different pandemic of a different disease. That's why the vaccine advice has changed so suddenly. We're not dealing with the same thing that hit us in March 2020.

I've read some reports suggesting that Omicron is an unholy union between the Delta variant + the Common Cold. That makes sense (to me as a layman) as we now seem to be facing a wave that shares some of the worst traits of both.
Click to expand...

One of the very first tweets I read about this was a virologist going “fecking hell, this is SARS-CoV-3”
 
I haven’t read into it to fact check but I’ve heard a lot of people say a super transmissible version was what brought a close to the last big flu pandemic. So if that’s true we might be on the course to being on the other side in the next few months.

Need someone to actually fact check that though! Makes sense logically though because the immunity Population wise is going to be built up in a couple of weeks instead of the long drawn out months process of the other waves.
 
LARulz said:
Thanks. I know it's early and I imagine everything now is a better safe than sorry approach but last I heard (may be out of date) was that this variant is, for the most part, less harmful compared to others. But is clearly quicker to spread. Is that ultimately not what people kept saying is ideal? Faster to spread and become dominant but less harmful?

I understand the less harmful nature comes from people being vaccinated and having antibodies, so it's not the same for everyone but still

Sorry if these are dumb questions covered before but just wanted to understand what I'm missing to see a bigger picture
Click to expand...
At this stage for a country like the UK (high vaccination rates, high levels of past infection) it's all about small percentages.

If it's half as likely to hospitalise you then the cases will still overwhelm the hospitals (whether or not those patients go on to fill the morgues). If it's a quarter we might just wobble through it, but it will be brutal.

If it's significantly better than that we may as well have a party (or better still, a series of them, to stagger the hospitalisations and the absences from work) and get it over with quickly. If we can do it fast enough and warn the most vulnerable (including those who can't take the vaccine) to stay home - maybe even supply them with therapeutics in advance - then it might be as good as it gets.

Trouble is we may not have those numbers to do those calculations until we're so deep into it that we can't jump back if they say we'll have no workforce to deliver food next week and we have to use church halls as plague hospitals. I don't think that will happen, I think we'll see people vote with their feet. Parties will be scaled down, events will get cancelled. Oddly enough, the UK people seem to have become quite adept at curve flattening.

The calculation is going to be different in every country though. There is a possibility that some countries will ride this out in its Omicron form (if the most hopeful mildness data holds) and others will find it unbearable. Personally I can't imagine why people would want to wait for another round of tailor made vaccines (that might already be out of date the day they arrive) but some countries and some people won't see it that way. And mild in the vaxxed/past infected population might be nothing like mild in a previously unexposed group.
 
I do feel like we are at the point where we just need to get as many people vaccinated and boostered as possible and just let the thing spread now (while protecting and shielding the vunerable).

I don't see how we can keep this up year after year otherwise because it's not going to just go away.
 
Ireland gonna lockdown just in time for Christmas. This feels very familiar.
 
Wouldn't it make sense to close schools in Ireland from today?
 
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