Is omicron really a bad thing?

[Suff]

Today at the BBC.

What does seem likely is the wave will come and go pretty quickly - even in other parts of the UK the restrictions in place are expected to only have a limited impact.

And once it does, experts believe the extra immunity acquired will mean the population will be even better protected for the future.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59862568

Which is exactly the question I was asking... Just a few days short of a month ago when the press were going ape about restrictions and out of control and....



Whilst



The biggest issue being NHS staff off isolating due to Omicron infections. Creating a problem with staffing in the NHS to deal with the new cases.

There is another image about incidental cases and the growth in them. As opposed to covid admissions. But the image is not good for linking here.

[miasmum]

My poor husband is coughing his heart up at the minute, he had a sore throat last Tuesday and what turned into a horrible cold, but now has left him with a dreadful cough. He has tested every 2 days so 4 times and all negative. He knows it isn't Covid as Luke also has it, as do several members of his team, all are testing regularly and negative. They are all pretty poorly and Luke is struggling to pick himself up from the fatigue. Now other years, they would probably have stayed at home with this virus, same as Tim might. But this year they cant, as they are all so short staffed due to people having to isolate for testing positive for omicron. None of whom have anywhere near the symptoms the ones with the cold virus do. Same as Tim is the only member of his team in. The other one tested positive last week and this week her daughter has so cant go to school. Neither of them are unwell though not like poor Tim. My friends husband started with similar symptoms to Tim last week, but he tested positive. Felt unwell for a couple of days, but obviously couldn't work so rested. By yesterday he was negative, felt absolutely fine as he had done since last Friday and back to work.

They said on the news that the majority of people testing positive in hospital are admitted with something else and contract covid in hospital. Yes they are probably admitted with this virus. But lets all spread this awful cold virus, that lasts for weeks, causes a throat that feels like you have swallowed razor blades, a horrendous cough, headaches and fatigue, because its not covid so it doesn't matter

[Suff]

Well it is getting back to normal then in a way. You can't shut the country down for a virus which makes you ill but doesn't kill you.

When I did some research on MERS at the beginning of the pandemic, the hospitals were breeding grounds for the virus.

Hospitals tend to be breeding grounds for many maladies because people are at their lowest and their immune system is depressed. Similar to the way that the bacterial infection got a good grip on me in hospital when I had my heart attack.

Omicron does not seem to be fitting the "catch me and die" paradigm, especially among the vaccinated and therefore controls will not be so strong.

[cromwell]

Hopefully Omicron is a good thing. If it builds a better immune response than the jabs and doesn't kill people then it will be.

I will say that the media have behaved appallingly throughout all this, and the government can't escape blame either. Early on sections of the government thought that people weren't scared enough, and decided to make them terrified.
https://eternapartners.com/2021/07/02/p ... k-control/

The media have been only too happy to join in the scare stories, whether it be the Daily Mail with it's apocalyptic capitalised screaming headlines of doom, or the BBC and Sky always promoting the worst case scenarios.

Media incitement of hysteria has led to panic buying, pressured the government into buying ventilators that were underused and constructing nightingale hospitals that never saw a patient. It has caused a mental health crisis, put up suicides (whatever the official stats may say), ruined children's education, and halted elective surgery.

I don't think that we will ever get an honest inquiry int this.

ETA - I hope your husband improves soon, MM.

[Workingman]

This is not about the numbers, they have been all over the place since the 27th of December and it will be a week or so before they are reliable again.

This is a round about way of supporting Johnson's claim that we must "ride out" the omicron wave with no more curbs in England.

I can agree with him on that, in general. There will come a time when we have to open up. Whether the middle of winter and an unknown point in the wave is the right time is debatable. Whitty and Vallance were not exactly overflowing with support at the news conference.

He also said that there was a "good chance" he would not have to impose fresh measures but then told us that 100.000 workers in key industries would need to take daily tests (a new measure?). Hmmm.

It's wait and see time.

[cromwell]

Whitty and Vallance were not exactly overflowing with support at the news conference. .

No surprise there. As the UK's premier merchants of doom, they are doubtless grieving the loss of lockdowwn. If Omicron doesn't justify their doom laden predictions and their recommended restrictions haven't been implemented, it makes them look a bit daft.

He also said that there was a "good chance" he would not have to impose fresh measures but then told us that 100.000 workers in key industries would need to take daily tests (a new measure?). Hmmm.

Surely if you increase testing, you are bound to increase positive results? I don't get this at all.
If these people are key workers then you are increasing the chance of them having to go off sick at a time when you say you have a shortage?
This is just going to be lockdown / net zero by stealth, surely?

[Workingman]

I saw it as slightly the other way. "Ride out" the wave and a "good chance" of no new restrictions looked to me like a soft way of going for some form herd immunity. I am not now totally against that but I do question the timing.

Quite agree about the key-worker testing, though. If that was going to work we should have been doing it ages ago, surely?

[Suff]

I think the daily testing is a sop to the "lockdown by any means" crew. Essentially the faster you test and discover, the less the initial infection spreads because you won't be detected until you are able to transmit. Therefore if you take a test in the morning and are positive, but you were not positive yesterday, theoretically you minimised the spread if you stay home till you test negative.

There is logic there but nobody is actually talking about it. Whilst daily tests are a measure, they are not exactly a constraint as such.

Meanwhile the delvers and pokers have found a whole New variant in France. With, now sit down Even More Divergences from core Covid than the Omicron variant.... All cower in fear now.

Macron is going to "piss off" the unvaccinated. God knows what else he's going to do, but I'm sure it won't be easy.

Also Boris removes lateral flow or pcr tests before flying to the UK because "it doesn't make enough of a difference". Put another way, so many are either boosted or infected with Omicron that a newly infected person arriving in a plane isn't going to make much of a difference.

I didn't hear much howling about the 351 deaths recorded for today. Perhaps the press looked too silly when they ranted on about "triple the deaths" last week, only to find the next day it was just over 50. As WM says the numbers are all over the place. Mid Jan before they settle I think.

Serious cases rose but only to a level below the recent peak in November/December. Not enough to warrant action yet.

[Workingman]

You use the figures to support both the balloon combing Mr Mop-Head and your own view.

I could use the latest figures of 194,747 cases, 17,276 in hospital (911 in ICU) and 334 deaths to argue against your pin-up poster boy, but I will not because, as we all know, those figures are skewed as well.

We need a good run of figures from when people are back at work, pupils are in schools, students are in HE / FE and we are all socialising in the way we were in the Autumn and run up to Christmas. When they happen we might have some idea of where we are heading.

The new IHU strain in Cameroon / France is neither her nor there, as things stand. It might or might not become significant, we don't yet know.

I have said twice in my last two posts that I am in agreement with the general thrust of relaxation but that I am not convinced by the timing - at present.

[Suff]

I know WM, I'll tone it down till we get good figures.

However I am expecting a knee jerk reaction here in France for the new variant. Data or not.