Coronavirus - the new strain XXII

[gavreid]

Nah tell him he can't have it now.

Converts are welcome - let's have some here too

 

[Seanm]

World service news had an interview with a SA ER doctor today and she mentioned the same - omicron is leading to a much different demographic in the ER. She's seeing infants through people in their 40s, and the hospitals do not have enough pediatric beds. Really worrying times for parents of young children.

This might turn out to be the case, let’s hope not. But bear in mind that every variant so far has been accompanied by stories of different age profiles and paediatric ICUs filling up and in every case so far it’s turned out to be bullshit.

 

[gavreid]

This might turn out to be the case, let’s hope not. But bear in mind that every variant so far has been accompanied by stories of different age profiles and paediatric ICUs filling up and in every case so far it’s turned out to be bullshit.

It depends what you consider to be bullshit. I've posted links regularly to the numbers of hospitalised nippers. The issue with your posts is the defenciveness over your previous miscalculations...

 

[webster]

Mask usage is up from pretty much none the last time to maybe 40% now, but quite a few staff weren’t wearing them despite it being a legal requirement.

If staff aren't being told to wear them by their employer then it's doomed to fail.

 

[Joe P]

Nature News is not the same as a Nature journal article, but it's often much better at presenting current science than other online news sources.

With that preamble, Nature News published a good article about Omicron yesterday: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03614-z

Joe

 

[Joe P]

P.S. This excerpt from the article is the thing that concerns me —

Omicron’s rapid rise in South Africa is what worries researchers most, because it suggests the variant could spark explosive increases in COVID-19 cases elsewhere. On 1 December, South Africa recorded 8,561 cases, up from the 3,402 reported on 26 November and several hundred per day in mid-November, with much of the growth occurring in Gauteng Province, home to Johannesburg.

Epidemiologists measure an epidemic’s growth using R, the average number of new cases spread by each infection. In late November, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD) in Johannesburg determined that R was above 2 in Gauteng. That level of growth was last observed in the early days of the pandemic, Richard Lessels, an infectious-disease physician at KwaZulu-Natal University in Durban, South Africa, told a press briefing last week.

Gauteng’s R value was well below 1 in September — when Delta was the predominant variant and cases were falling — suggesting that Omicron has the potential to spread much faster and infect vastly more people than Delta, says Tom Wenseleers, an evolutionary biologist at KU-Leuven in Belgium. Based on the rise in COVID-19 cases and sequencing data, Wenseleers estimates that Omicron can infect 3 to 6 times as many people as Delta, over the same time period. “That’s a huge advantage for the virus — but not for us,” he adds.
​

Of course, if Omicron causes only mild COVID and if the vaccines provide strong protection, my shits will be less brick shaped.

Joe

 

[gavreid]

Of course, if Omicron causes only mild COVID and if the vaccines provide strong protection, my shits will be less brick shaped.

Hospitalisations now seem to be following case numbers in SA. The key issue is how it depends on the various vaccines.

 

[Tony L]

If staff aren't being told to wear them by their employer then it's doomed to fail.

It surprised me given it is, as I understand it, a legal requirement/government mandate. I’d have thought it opened the door to disciplinary measures both for the supermarket as a corporate entity and for staff working within that as employees. They certainly took the 2020 lockdowns far more seriously. I can understand the store not wanting to get into abusive or aggressive situations with the general public, but I’d have expected the staff to be protected and for them to at least be making an effort visibly giving masks out etc.

 

[mandryka]

Does anyone know why previous COVID 19 viruses effected young children so little?

 

[Joe P]

Gav,

Yikes, I've just sent my regrets for the Christmas party I wasn't going attend anyway.

Joe

 

[Joe P]

Does anyone know why previous COVID 19 viruses effected young children so little?

Yes.

 

[Seanm]

It depends what you consider to be bullshit. I've posted links regularly to the numbers of hospitalised nippers. The issue with your posts is the defenciveness over your previous miscalculations...

Children have gotten sick and died from the start, and it’s terrible. But the age profile has not shifted with any of the variants and PICUs have never filled up: that’s the bullshit I’m talking about.

I’m not defensive about any “miscalculations” because I’ve never made any predictions or offered any simple solutions. I’ve mostly just pointed out downsides, tradeoffs, uncertainties, dubious claims, flim-flam - which I’m aware is irritating but is probably less dangerous.

 

[mandryka]

Yes.

Gougnafier.

 

[Joe P]

mandryka,

For a guy who's posted a bazillion times in this thread — suggesting an interest in the topic — I thought you might have bothered to read, understand and retain at least something.

But as you're a serial thread crapper who adds nothing to the discussion and who just called me a wan ker (yes, I can see that as a mod despite your quick edit), you are permanently banned from this thread.

Joe

 

[Sonority]

The People’s Covid Inquiry, chaired by Michael Mansfield QC, took place fortnightly from 24 February-16 June 2021. It's report now released accuses the Government of Misconduct in Public Office.

Here's the report summary: Misconduct in public office. Why did so many thousands die unnecessarily?

The inquiry concluded that:

• The Government treated bereaved families with disrespect and ignored their questions
• It failed to address the seriousness of the pandemic before the March 2020 lockdown
• Deep social inequality contributed to a more vulnerable population
• Financial support for people needing to isolate was not sufficient to effectively reduce infection spread
• The government’s delay in issuing advice to healthcare professionals, and advice to the public to rely on NHS 111, contributed to the coronavirus death toll
• There was, and is, a “misplaced over-reliance on vaccines alone”
• Government public health messages were often confused and contradictory

The inquiry also pointed to the huge waste of public money spent on an ineffective system for testing and tracing people thought to have been exposed to the virus.

“The disastrous decision to bypass the NHS and use the private sector to run the FTTIS (find, test, trace, isolate, support) system has thus far cost the taxpayer £37 billion without, according to the Public Accounts Committee, making a measurable difference to the pandemic,” the report said.

https://www.peoplescovidinquiry.com/

What chance this having real teeth and doing the damage it **should** to BJ and all those who caused so much damage in 2021 (and before imo)
Hopefully it reaches the public at large.

 

[Seanm]

mandryka,

For a guy who's posted a bazillion times in this thread — suggesting an interest in the topic — I thought you might have bothered to read, understand and retain at least something.

But as you're a serial thread crapper who adds nothing to the discussion and who just called me a wan ker (yes, I can see that as a mod despite your quick edit), you are permanently banned from this thread.

Joe

I think this is a mistake. Swearing in foreign doesn’t count, for one, and for two this thread really doesn’t need to get any more cosily consensual.

Also I don’t understand what kind of person clicks the like button on a post like this.

 

[gavreid]

What chance this having real teeth and doing the damage it **should** to BJ and all those who caused so much damage in 2021 (and before imo)
Hopefully it reaches the public at large.

I know! It will be picked up by the bereaved families and their lawyers. It's all a slow burner in my opinion, the Tories know they will lose the argument but they're racing for the next election. My feeling is that the 'Opposition' needs to keep hammering the corruption line. It's a winner every time 'If you were corrupt on X how do we know that you're not on Y?!

 

[Sonority]

I think this is a mistake. Swearing in foreign doesn’t count, for one, and for two this thread really doesn’t need to get any more cosily consensual.

Also I don’t understand what kind of person clicks the like button on a post like this.

I was not in a foreign language to begin with.

 

[Joe P]

Sean,

I think this is a mistake. Swearing in foreign doesn’t count, for one, and for two this thread really doesn’t need to get any more cosily consensual.

Also I don’t understand what kind of person clicks the like button on a post like this.

I don't wish to discuss my moderation decision publicly, but mandryka is banned from posting only in this thread. He is not banned from pfm. This is not about making the thread cosily consensual. It's about the perpetual thread crapping. Being called a wan ker was just the icing on a shit cake.

Joe

 

[Paul R]

What Ken wrote is figuratively correct.

As I believe I acknowledged.

If you want to get a bit more technical, vaccines stimulate your immune system to produce antibodies, similar to what happens if your immune system is exposed to an infectious disease. If you are exposed to a disease after you've developed antibodies, your immune system is primed to open a can of whup-ass on the pathogen.

I think we should be more technical, too much hand-waving goes on. For instance the reduction of the immune system to anti-bodies.

I also think we should have some concern for the selective pressures we're applying to the virus with our novel interventions.