Coronavirus

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

People have changed their behaviour - look at all the reports of cancelled Christmas parties.

The predictions are doomed to be wrong, but that doesn't matter as long as they have the right effect.

You don't need a dog and a whistle to round up sheep

[heero_yuy]

Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you.

(Benjamin Franklin)

BREAKING: Emergency Covid Cobra meeting call happening in next few hours to give rise to further restrictions being implemented. Source: Politico.

I will ignore them. I suspect millions more will also too. We have got to start living normally with this virus.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Officials drawing up plans for two-week post-Christmas lockdown.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...s-say-12498746

Seems a bit pointless, at this rate Omicron will hit a natural ceiling of people to infect before then, especially with boosters being taken up at the rate which they are. However many hospital admissions are already "baked in" from 90k testing positive yesterday, and however many will test positive due to a few days' incubation period catching it from others, even if they bring in a full lockdown tonight it will take a few days to peak, which might be what it would do naturally anyway. At some point it will reach the level where enough people are protected either from having covid, or from the vaccines, where it can't infect anyone else.



A ban on indoor mixing makes sense, if you can enforce it, which is the issue there. A lot of people are scaling down their plans which means that you won't necessarily see as much of an issue there, but realistically how do you stop a group of more than 6 mixing indoors, or two households, or whatever, you'd presumably have to monitor individual houses or something. Limiting pubs to outdoor service - well, some don't have the space so they'll have to close, and really people aren't going to sit outside in the middle of winter with their food/drinks so that's basically forcing them to close as well, so furlough will have to come back, all for a 2 week circuit breaker?

I understand they do need a "next stage" planned out if they need it but the time to go in harder was when they chose to go for Plan B measures, though it's not too easy to see what would actually work well. Plan B wasn't ever hard enough if you actually wanted to stop the virus.

[jfman]

What is the natural ceiling for Omicron given 2x vaccine efficacy near zero (actually zero for some vaccines), 3x vaccine efficacy 60% (and probably will wane) and previous infection unknown?

As for enforcement I don’t see that being much of a challenge. There have been rule breakers in every lockdown. The new ones will be offset by those concerned as figures rise - the number of people voluntarily changing plans and cancelling Christmas parties etc show the public to be massively risk averse even when figures are low. If they don’t the solution is to extend restrictions for as long as required to bring hospitalisations down sufficiently.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by jfman

That’ll hurt for the Steve Bakers of this world if it happens. “Freedom” erosion on steroids. Or genetically engineered in a lab if preferable.

What did he tweet about Chris Whitty the other day, that he shouldn't contradict bozo with his advice or something, remember these are the goons that follow the science and then there was that other low level dross joy morrisey telling him to basically shut up as he hasn't been elected, well newsflash you weren't elected to come out with such utter bs either, Whitty and Marcus Rashford should do them a deal, they'll stay out of politics if they do to

[Taf]

Originally Posted by nffc

Aren't people just stockpiling LFTs because
- the new guidance is that close contacts of cases do LFTs
- people are being suggested to do LFTs before going anywhere

A poster on another forum stated that she had "dozens and dozens" of LFTs as she had heard that they will not be free for much longer.

I bet she's not the only one hoarding them and causing greater scarcity for those that need them NOW.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

What did he tweet about Chris Whitty the other day, that he shouldn't contradict bozo with his advice or something, remember these are the goons that follow the science and then there was that other low level dross joy morrisey telling him to basically shut up as he hasn't been elected, well newsflash you weren't elected to come out with such utter bs either, Whitty and Marcus Rashford should do them a deal, they'll stay out of politics if they do to

If you're saying that Whitty & Rashford are more trustworthy than Boris & his sheep when they give advice, then you're right.

[Taf]

I've seen many posts from the "it's just a flu" idiots that have now changed to "I've got a runny nose and sore throat, it's just a cold, so I'm still going out with my mates to the match/pub/club".

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Taf

I've seen many posts from the "it's just a flu" idiots that have now changed to "I've got a runny nose and sore throat, it's just a cold, so I'm still going out with my mates to the match/pub/club".

That's because for most people - whether due to prior immunity or simply milder illness - that's all Omicron will give you. A test is the only way of knowing, and there are still colds around, so most people are presumably not testing, thinking "oh yes it's just a cold" and carrying on. Whether or not it is, that mentality still needs to stop, as even passing on a cold is unpleasant enough for people.

Originally Posted by Taf

A poster on another forum stated that she had "dozens and dozens" of LFTs as she had heard that they will not be free for much longer.

I bet she's not the only one hoarding them and causing greater scarcity for those that need them NOW.

Probably not, and I think they have said the issues are more getting them out of stock and into people than actually physically running out.


Amazon can do same day delivery, so surely the UKHSA need to be actually couriering a box of LFTs to the close contacts (if they don't already have any) so they can do their tests, same day or next day, if they have enough LFTs in the household they don't need any more.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

What is the natural ceiling for Omicron given 2x vaccine efficacy near zero (actually zero for some vaccines), 3x vaccine efficacy 60% (and probably will wane) and previous infection unknown?

I haven’t seen those figures, everything I’ve seen is around 60% for two and above 75% for three.

And there is still precious little data here on severity of illness.

As for enforcement I don’t see that being much of a challenge. There have been rule breakers in every lockdown. The new ones will be offset by those concerned as figures rise - the number of people voluntarily changing plans and cancelling Christmas parties etc show the public to be massively risk averse even when figures are low

There’s plenty of parties still going ahead, Mrs Pierre has hers next week. Pubs are still busy, I was in one last night, not a spare table in sight.

. If they don’t the solution is to extend restrictions for as long as required to bring hospitalisations down sufficiently.

Hospitalisations are still below Oct/Nov levels, they’ll have to go up before we need to bring them down, we also don’t know what the upper limit is.

[jfman]

The hospitality sector must be making up their problems then based on your observations. Rishi might be able to get away without financial support for this lockdown.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by jfman

The hospitality sector must be making up their problems then based on your observations. Rishi might be able to get away without financial support for this lockdown.

That’s not what I said is it? I was just pointing out that it’s not wholesale cancellations. Works Christmas parties I would expect are fairing the worst due to companies not wanting to be held liable for anything.

I was on a rare evening out last night and the town and pubs were just as busy as I have seen them.

Originally Posted by Pierre

I haven’t seen those figures, everything I’ve seen is around 60% for two and above 75% for three.

And there is still precious little data here on severity of illness.

Jfman knows better than the WHO when it comes to discussing vaccine efficacy and prefers to discuss efficacy in his own terms. I guess he’s just a glass half empty sort of guy.

Meanwhile, according to the explainer here …

https://www.who.int/news-room/featur...and-protection

… efficacy is a vaccine’s ability to prevent development of disease, which in this case is Covid-19, and not its ability to eliminate detectable infection, in this case of the virus designated SARS-CoV-2.

According to that globally-accepted definition, we can indeed discuss Oxford/Astra, Pfizer, Moderna and the rest in terms of their ability to prevent people getting sick, and by that measure the statistics you quoted are the ones that apply.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Supposed to double every two days isn’t it, that hasn’t happened.

We’re testing on average 600,000 people a day more than we were a week ago. So numbers are bound to go up even without Omicron.

Deaths are down and been declining since the end of Oct

Hospitalisations have plateaued and not risen above Sep and Oct highs as yet.

It’s 3 weeks since the first reported cases of Omicron in the U.K.

If they’re not clogging up the hospital corridors by Christmas Eve, I think it’s safe to assume they won’t be any other time in the future.

You got that right

10,059omicron cases today, more than three times as many as yesterday.

I wonder what 10,300 is as percentage of total omicron variant cases

Edit:24,698 total omicron cases

2nd edit:approx 71% increase in the past
24hrs