Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
Indeed, a 'bad' flu season seems to be comprable, re: deaths, but we'd need to look at the extent to which Covid/Omicron becomes as seasonal as flu to establish say..an annual death toll.
Coronavirus - the new strain XXIII
- Thread starter gavreid
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Indeed, a 'bad' flu season seems to be comprable, re: deaths, but we'd need to look at the extent to which Covid/Omicron becomes as seasonal as flu to establish say..an annual death toll.
Over 150,000 excess deaths have been registered since the Covid outbreak started over 2 years ago. Colds do not do that, flu does not do that. Covid, very clearly, for the vulnerable (and not all in this group know that they are in this group), is far more severe. This data is clearly for all variants to date, as I have not seen any medical data that suggests that Omicron is less severe for the vulnerable (elderly, people with comorbidities, people with learning difficulties, people with weak immune systems, people being treated for cancer etc).
And why do you think that there is some validity in comparing deaths with infected cases in this way? They are from different timeframes. When infected you could die within a few days or it might be months later (so that number is an integral covering the whole timeframe Covid has existed). Whereas the number of infected people you are inferring from a set of snapshots on particular days, some interpolation and then summed for your arbitrary month, i.e. they are not time consistent.
To get figures that really mean something you would need to track all the registered cases and see what happened from the infection date to the date of death and present it graphically to see if it could be interpreted sensibly.
Omicron is far more infectious than Flu and therefore will infect many more people and many more people will die is the end result.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
The vaccines are significantly less effective against omicron, unfortunately. The reduced severity was a stroke of very good fortune. It also means that prior infection is no guaranteee of safety if that's what the herd immunity crowd were hoping for.
The other problem, I think, is the mistaken belief that the omicron strain is a linear variation from the original->alpha->delta etc again where the herd immunity believers fall down. The next problematic strain is unlikely to be a straightforward variant of Omicron in the same way.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
6000 deaths from 15,000,000 Omicron infections. How many people get flu each season? How many of the flu deaths are in similarly old and vulnerable cohorts?
gavreid
Pretty Words...
It isn't just deaths, of course, as the media would like us to believe. It's the trail of disruption, long term illness and economic problems. It's far, far worse than flu in every respect.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
We should acknowledge that, to a considerable extent, the 'trail of disruption...and economic problems' is fallout from the Covid protection/prevention measures, not the disease itself. The conversation needs to swing towards where the balance will sit, long term. The balance will depend on whether and to what extent the long-term mortality and illness numbers play out at acceptable levels. If a mortality of 6000 (vulnerable, elderly and unvaccinated) from 15 million infections is found to be closer to the norm, we need to ask ourselves whether or not this is acceptable and permits a return to BAU, given that flu gives us broadly comparable numbers every year and has done for decades.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
You're ignoring the success of the flu vaccination programme again, which has been developed over the past decade. It's a nonsense to campare flu today with flu even 5 years ago
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Flu deaths are still in the thousands, as are road deaths. We have hitherto found these acceptable and not resorted to extreme measures to prevent them. I'm simply asking why we would not do the same with Covid, and where the tipping point might be?
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
In total, yes, I believe so. But the ratio of infections to deaths is mitigated by the vaccine.
As I understand it, the vaccines are less effective against symptomatic infection with Omicron, but remain highly effective against deaths from Omicron (Not 100%..but highly effective..) Am I wrong?
I think I get what you mean there..
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Coronavirus ‘bounces back’ in UK as new Omicron subtype emerges
Leke Oso Alabi
The lead scientist on the Zoe Covid study has said coronavirus infections in the UK have risen, as children return to schools and a subtype of the Omicron variant of coronavirus emerges. The study, which uses an app to track infections, estimates that the number of new daily symptomatic cases of Covid-19 rose 10 per cent to 159,486. The estimate is based on 42,694 swab tests performed on symptomatic cases of coronavirus in the fortnight to January 26.
“The bounce back in case numbers just as we lift restrictions has come sooner than many expected,” said Tim Spector. “But it’s not surprising given that, throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen the end of school holidays repeatedly usher in a rapid rise in cases among children, which then cross over into parents and school staff. Another emerging factor is that a new subtype of Omicron is taking over, called BA. 2, which is likely more infectious,” he added. Spector said one in 20 new cases of coronavirus “had this variant” last week, and as it was “doubling every few days” it should “predominate within a month”.
https://www.ft.com/content/d402d072-f19a-4f75-80c6-e6973c3137cd
Leke Oso Alabi
The lead scientist on the Zoe Covid study has said coronavirus infections in the UK have risen, as children return to schools and a subtype of the Omicron variant of coronavirus emerges. The study, which uses an app to track infections, estimates that the number of new daily symptomatic cases of Covid-19 rose 10 per cent to 159,486. The estimate is based on 42,694 swab tests performed on symptomatic cases of coronavirus in the fortnight to January 26.
“The bounce back in case numbers just as we lift restrictions has come sooner than many expected,” said Tim Spector. “But it’s not surprising given that, throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen the end of school holidays repeatedly usher in a rapid rise in cases among children, which then cross over into parents and school staff. Another emerging factor is that a new subtype of Omicron is taking over, called BA. 2, which is likely more infectious,” he added. Spector said one in 20 new cases of coronavirus “had this variant” last week, and as it was “doubling every few days” it should “predominate within a month”.
https://www.ft.com/content/d402d072-f19a-4f75-80c6-e6973c3137cd
gavreid
Pretty Words...
Yes there's no physical barrier as such to the virus entering the body - it's a matter of whether or not it takes hold. The vaccine is also less effective against serious infection, hence the need for third doses across the board. Two doses were fine against the original Wuhan strain.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
UK road deaths for 2021: 1,390
And I'd argue that we do have quite a number of measures in place to minimise road deaths - speed limits, MOTs, driving bans, improved car safety standards, seat belts etc etc.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Typical years' road deaths are >2k, often ~3k, I suspect last year's figures is a blip due, most probably, to the Covid measures we're talking about. And yes, the safety measures have brought those numbers down from clearly unacceptable levels in the tens of thousands. Would you reduce all speed limits, say to 10mph, to eliminate 99% of the remaining casualties? The question is one of balance of burden vs outcome, as it is with Covid.
Covid:
6000 deaths in 4 weeks (Omicron is not stopping killing people because someone wanted to put a number on an internet forum)
A range of NPIs in place
A large change in public behaviour to make everyone safer
A massive vaccination program with 84% of people over 12 double vaccinated
Flu:
In a bad season maybe 6000 deaths in 4 weeks but it decays far quicker than Covid has.
No NPIs in place
No change in public behaviour
Only the vulnerable are vaccinated
I really do not see them as comparable.
Maybe @hc25036 can comment as they have much more knowledge in this area.
Seanm
pfm Member
The confusion here partly reflects the rhetoric of vaccine-plus campaigners, who used reduced effectiveness against infection by Delta to talk down vaccines and talk up other measures. But more than that it reflects actual booster policy, which is aimed at reducing not just serious disease but infection.
Whether or not booster policy is justified is another matter, but we can’t really blame people for thinking that the effectiveness of vaccine should be measured against infection, when that’s how they’re being discussed and used.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
This was a good thread that I posted only on Tuesday. Covid attacks every organ of the body flu does not.
BTW, kids have the flu vaccine to prevent transmission from schools to grandparents rather than because of their own vulnerability. This logic and precedent has not been applied to covid by JCVI.
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/coronavirus-the-new-strain-xxiii.263044/page-47#post-4583934
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
I disagree, because everything I have seen and heard, discusses the vaccine effectiveness in terms of both reducing infection rates, AND reducing the severity of infection.
Also, anyone who takes notice of the info will be aware that vaccines do not have a binary effect as in 'vaccinated = safe' v 'unvaccinated = doomed' It is all a numbers game which can be reduced to 'risk of infection is reduced and risk of death further reduced, by full vaccination, BUT, some will still be vulnerable and some may die, despite vaccination.'
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Yes, accepted. But the 6k deaths are from infecting something close to a quarter of the population, which means that if 'everybody' gets infected, the upper limit is on the order of 25k deaths. That's a lot more than is going to be acceptable, but it's coming down towards where flu used to be (without attracting much public comment).
But to get back to the point I'm trying to make, the trend is clearly towards numbers which are orders of magnitude less scary than at the beginning. I think it's time the conversation turned to what is an appropriate balance of vaccination, NPIs, restrictions and support for the long-term. If there's one thing we're probably all agreed on, it is that we can't continue like this indefinitely. We probably can't continue like this for much longer. So when does the balance flip, and what to?
A lot of effort has gone into making our roads safer and in fact as a country we have one of the safest systems in the world.
Just to be correct we have had less then 2000 road deaths for many years (for completeness 2020: 1460 and 2021: 1390):
The number of road deaths in the UK plateaued from 2012 to 2019 at around 1,850 deaths a year, or the equivalent of five a day, on average
https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/uk-road-safety
These figures are expected to continue to drop as ADAS (Accident Damage Avoidance Systems) become more prevalent.
These figures are very small when compared to the > 150,000 excess deaths from Covid (over nearly 2 years).
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