It looks as though most are expecting further restrictions to be put into place later in the week. Too little, too late, as usual. London was reportedly around 35% Omicron last Wednesday so it will almost certainly be dominant there this coming week. Pubs are full, Christmas parties are in full swing. What could possibly go wrong?
Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]
- Thread starter RDGoodla
- Start date
Yes, a reply from somebody who doesn't understand exponential expansion. There's a lot of them around.
Bear in mind we've actually got two epidemics on the go at the moment. Delta expanding slowly, Omicron rocketing. The larger Delta numbers are hiding the growth in Omicron for now. Omicron will begin to supplant Delta in many parts of the country next week and we'll follow the numbers seen in Denmark:
Oddly enough, I remember there was a similar response to the growth of Delta in the UK earlier this year. The declining Alpha numbers hid the Delta wave building up in the background right until it took off.
Bear in mind we've actually got two epidemics on the go at the moment. Delta expanding slowly, Omicron rocketing. The larger Delta numbers are hiding the growth in Omicron for now. Omicron will begin to supplant Delta in many parts of the country next week and we'll follow the numbers seen in Denmark:
Yes, a reply from somebody who doesn't understand exponential expansion. There's a lot of them around.
Bear in mind we've actually got two epidemics on the go at the moment. Delta expanding slowly, Omicron rocketing. The larger Delta numbers are hiding the growth in Omicron for now. Omicron will begin to supplant Delta in many parts of the country next week and we'll follow the numbers seen in Denmark:
Oddly enough, I remember there was a similar response to the growth of Delta in the UK earlier this year. The declining Alpha numbers hid the Delta wave building up in the background right until it took off.
There is a rise in omicron cases, but not necessarily in hospitalizations. Restrictive measures are supposed to, at least as it was advertised to the public, to avoid a healthcare colapse.
Its a pickle. If omicron turns out to make people as sick as other variants, it would be wise to start restrictions early.
If it stays as tame as it supposedly is according to South African reports, restrictions now would be excessive, and would take yet another toll in the health care system and the already fragile economy in general, which also claims the health and lives of citizens worldwide.
It's a difficult comparison with SA due to their much younger demographics, spotty vaccination programme and also the different variants in play. They had Alpha and Delta waves but also Beta which might feasibly make a difference (though perhaps not).
Perhaps a better comparison (for the UK, where I live so this is of most interest to me!), it's the hospitalisation trend in Denmark which has similar vaccination rates and waves of infection. They seem to indicate Omicron outcomes are likely to be similar to Delta:
Very early days yet, of course, so we'll have to wait and see.
One thing that has occurred to me is that we might be slightly better off due to our failures to control the spread effectively in past waves. The early neutralisation studies seem to show that a combination of vaccination and past infection may provide the best protection against Omicron. This might mean it might not hit the UK as badly as places where they controlled earlier waves better! Not betting on it, however.
Here in the UK, reportedly 80% of Omicron cases are in ages 20 to 40, so we can't really infer anything much from hospitalisation rates yet.
Perhaps a better comparison (for the UK, where I live so this is of most interest to me!), it's the hospitalisation trend in Denmark which has similar vaccination rates and waves of infection. They seem to indicate Omicron outcomes are likely to be similar to Delta:
Very early days yet, of course, so we'll have to wait and see.
One thing that has occurred to me is that we might be slightly better off due to our failures to control the spread effectively in past waves. The early neutralisation studies seem to show that a combination of vaccination and past infection may provide the best protection against Omicron. This might mean it might not hit the UK as badly as places where they controlled earlier waves better! Not betting on it, however.
Here in the UK, reportedly 80% of Omicron cases are in ages 20 to 40, so we can't really infer anything much from hospitalisation rates yet.
UK Health Secretary just said in Parliament that they think up to 200k people in the UK are currently catching Omicron each day.
*Gulp*
If it's increasing from that rate, even our high testing capacity is going to be completely overwhelmed. Just keep an eye on the positivity rates...
*Gulp*
If it's increasing from that rate, even our high testing capacity is going to be completely overwhelmed. Just keep an eye on the positivity rates...
digitalwanderer
Legend
I was tenderizing a skirt steak yesterday, had it on the cutting board and my whacking mallet/tenderizer all set up, when my wife came up to me and said, "Which arm?".
She'd brought home boosters and gave then to the kids, then gave me mine real quick before I started pounding out her dinner. My daughter made a comment about how the needle didn't freak her out at all and she even had Chrissy leave the needle in and wiggle it a bit so she could feel its location in her arm. (She's into medical stuff) I made a smart-assed comment asking her to remind me about this conversation when she has a heroin addiction. She said she was gonna kick me in the ballsack for that and joking swung her leg at me.
I'm not sure what happened next. Maybe she didn't expect me to turn or she just misjudged, but she nailed me full on both of 'em with a full leg kick and I went down dropping the meat tenderizer on my head. When I got up after getting the puppies away and some help with my son I was missing a shoe and in a great deal of pain.
Oh, I'd fallen down the stairs in the morning due to my slipper only being half on my foot. I understand why they call them slippers now, and I ain't ever wearing them on stairs again. I did get lucky and just feel achy, but I'm pretty good at going slack when I fall and trying to spread impact/minimize damage and it turned out ok.
But I have decided that yesterday just f-ing sucked and I hated it, better days ahead.
Oh, first vaccines were Moderna and we got the full Pzifer for the booster.
She'd brought home boosters and gave then to the kids, then gave me mine real quick before I started pounding out her dinner. My daughter made a comment about how the needle didn't freak her out at all and she even had Chrissy leave the needle in and wiggle it a bit so she could feel its location in her arm. (She's into medical stuff) I made a smart-assed comment asking her to remind me about this conversation when she has a heroin addiction. She said she was gonna kick me in the ballsack for that and joking swung her leg at me.
I'm not sure what happened next. Maybe she didn't expect me to turn or she just misjudged, but she nailed me full on both of 'em with a full leg kick and I went down dropping the meat tenderizer on my head. When I got up after getting the puppies away and some help with my son I was missing a shoe and in a great deal of pain.
Oh, I'd fallen down the stairs in the morning due to my slipper only being half on my foot. I understand why they call them slippers now, and I ain't ever wearing them on stairs again. I did get lucky and just feel achy, but I'm pretty good at going slack when I fall and trying to spread impact/minimize damage and it turned out ok.
But I have decided that yesterday just f-ing sucked and I hated it, better days ahead.
Oh, first vaccines were Moderna and we got the full Pzifer for the booster.
I...have no idea how to respond to that! Glad you sound okay though! 
The local vaccine centre in town opened up to walk-ins yesterday. Was busy. I got a booster jab with nowt but a slightly sore arm today. Honestly though, if it's shown Omicron causes no severe illness in the vaccinated, I'd rather catch it than get a booster that stops me getting it. Exposure to the full on virus gives my body better options to develop diverse defences and be more resistant to vaccine-evasive coronaviruses.
The local vaccine centre in town opened up to walk-ins yesterday. Was busy. I got a booster jab with nowt but a slightly sore arm today. Honestly though, if it's shown Omicron causes no severe illness in the vaccinated, I'd rather catch it than get a booster that stops me getting it. Exposure to the full on virus gives my body better options to develop diverse defences and be more resistant to vaccine-evasive coronaviruses.
I can't see how that can be explained with data. Official case rate is 50,000 a day. If the real figure is way above that, case +ve rate should be increasing to show that, even though the same number of people are testing (actually that's gone up notably, some 40-50%, the last fortnight), a higher proportion are testing +ve. Case +ve rate is linear since the summer @ ~5%. Current sequencing of cases is finding only a small %age of Omicron too.
Don't ask me about the 200k nunber, ask Javid. I saw a data point somewhere mentioning 1.7 day doubling at present which is just insane, whichever way you look at things. I suspect this is a 'Christmas party + schools open" rate.
I doubt that we'll ever get to much more than 60k cases confirmed per day due to testing capacity available. That's why I mentioned to watch the positivity rate.
I doubt that we'll ever get to much more than 60k cases confirmed per day due to testing capacity available. That's why I mentioned to watch the positivity rate.
Digi that is terrible. Wow it is the brand of humor where you are happy it did not happen to you. Holy cow though man take care that was a rough one.
digitalwanderer
Legend
Yesterday was a crap day but I survived and most days are a whole lot better than it was so I can't complain. Plus it was just so awful it was comical, even to me.
Today I think I'm a bit foggy headed feeling. I'm sitting here getting ready to go make beef stew which I've made hundreds of times and I can't think of how to make it. I know I'll just get up and go in the kitchen and start grabbing pans, cutting board, knife, beef, potatoes, carrots, beef broth, and it'll just sort of come together...but trying to visualize the process isn't possible for my brain right now.
I love the weird after vaccine things, always something different. Been having trouble falling out of my computer chair every third time I get up, I got to be careful and watch my balance.
I feel f-ing pathetic, it sucks. It's gonna get better, but right now I'm just a crabby and whiny old man who has to go make stew for his wife. Then I'm gonna fire up the remastered edition of "Scrapland" and enjoy the heck out of the rest of my evening.
Hope every one is doing better than me, I seriously do.
EDITED BITS: Stew is all together and simmering nicely. I was right, it was just like muscle memory for me making it.
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I didn't really have any sort of a reaction to the half-dose Moderna booster (after 2xAZ). Very mild tiredness, but not enough that I could get out of cooking lunch and looking after the kids that day! My Dad who is in his mid-70s felt pretty poorly the day after his Pfizer booster (after 2xPfizer), but we weren't sure if that was down to the flu jab he had at the same time (I felt a bit rough after mine as well this year).
For me, I had persistent but mild headaches after my first AZ jab. Lasted several weeks, but nothing similar after the second.
Seems completely random, truth be told.
For me, I had persistent but mild headaches after my first AZ jab. Lasted several weeks, but nothing similar after the second.
Seems completely random, truth be told.
I'm less inclined to believe a politician than the real info.
Politicians are largely full of shit and they rely on manipulation of information. Certainly if a government spokesperson wants to present me with a number, they have to provide the supporting evidence these days*! Heck, another one is he said Omicron was 20% of all cases. Ergo, 20% of all cases is 200,000 a day, that's 1 million C19 cases a day!! Numbers don't add up, credibility lost, points he was trying to make get ignored as likely bollocks.* Which then gets scrutinised to try and find reality, like previous vaccine infection rate numbers...
It's quite fascinating. No clear rhyme nor reason to responses. I hope someone is collecting data on this to compare reaction to vaccines with reaction to actual disease. You'd imagine there'd be either direct +ve or -ve correlation, a bad reaction to the vaccine 1st/2nd/3rd dose == a good/bad reaction to the disease. But I guess there are too many variables including how the virus is contracted in the first place, viral load, previous exposure, etc.
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I'd imagine that Javid has access to UKHSA data which backs up his statement, even if the number was at the higher end of the confidence bar. It's still a big no-no to mislead Parliament, though you wouldn't necessarily know it with this bunch of incompetents.
The main take away I've got from reading up on the science during this pandemic is that immunology is a very (ludicrously) complicated subject and, despite all our in-depth knowledge of certain limited areas, we're still guessing as to why some things happen in one way in some people but not others. I'd imagine that the pandemic will greatly advance our knowledge of immunology due to the amount of resources being chucked that way. Much like the way that technology advanced rapidly during wartime.
And afterwards, when things (hopefully) begin to settle down, the politicians still won't properly fund scientific research!
The main take away I've got from reading up on the science during this pandemic is that immunology is a very (ludicrously) complicated subject and, despite all our in-depth knowledge of certain limited areas, we're still guessing as to why some things happen in one way in some people but not others. I'd imagine that the pandemic will greatly advance our knowledge of immunology due to the amount of resources being chucked that way. Much like the way that technology advanced rapidly during wartime.
And afterwards, when things (hopefully) begin to settle down, the politicians still won't properly fund scientific research!
Hmm, yeah, like Politicians don't ever intentionally mislead because it's naughty... He might even just have misunderstood the numbers, or the UKHSA may have ballsed up its estimates. We need data explaining it rather than being expected to take it at face value.
I'm not quite so optimistic. The level of scientific research has been, as is typical, pretty dire. Thousands of investigations, yet when it comes to something like trying to ascertain which treatments are actually useful, most are no good for all sorts of reasons. 'Science' still largely operates on the level of random testing. Stick a rat with a load of substance and see what happens, and then draw a conclusion. Or find a group of a people having some treatment and measure what happens with 43,296 other variables at play. If science was conducted as it should be, we shouldn't be getting conflicting info. All we really get are lots of numbers and people interpreting them in different ways.
I think we'll be getting conflicting reports and ideas for many years to come, and few real answers. We have a jigsaw puzzle with 100,000 pieces, no-one knows what it should be, and we only have about 1,000 pieces to hand. Covid19 might give us another 500.
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At least they have the numbering correctly,
Here in Spain they had the opposite order
0 = (highest, only allowed out for work, shopping)
..
3 = (least restrictions)
4 = normal i.e. no restrictions
Im like what happens if they need more restrictions? Introduce negative numbers
Totally unimportant observation, but I just found it funny at the time
Some (most) of the trials of existing drugs have been rubbish, but there have been some well-organised ones such as RECOVERY. The new Pfizer drug, Paxlovid looks like it delivers on the promise of the early data so should save a lot of lives - once enough of the stuff has been manufactured! The final data for Molnupiravir is disappointing in comparison, however, not that this is likely to stop it being widely used.
Despite all the crappy research going on, the sheer number of people looking at the field should hopefully mean that one or two actual breakthroughs are made. The signal/noise ratio is no doubt going to make it difficult to sift through the endless papers to find the good stuff!