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Coronavirus - the new strain XXIV

mentalp said:
T was made redundant in August 20 and hasn't worked since. Don't know when she'll feel able to work again or at what, she's having to make to-do lists constantly or she forgets things, and has a couple of other health issues. After seven years she's finally been referred for a hernia, last April the doctor told her due to budget restrictions it wasn't serious enough to be referred for, a different doctor has now referred her as it does limit what she can do, but don't know how long the wait to see someone will be. She did see someone about the other issue in February (delayed from December), has been sent an online contact for physiotherapy ( has to jump through some hoops before they'll consider further treatment) and an appointment to go back in September, if that doesn't get delayed. She's only 47. Our thoughts last year, were that she would need to have some sort of job by August 21for us to be able to manage, but was in no fit state by then. With the cost of everything rising and just the one wage it's all a bit worrying. My step-daughter has just got a fairly well paid job so should be able to start helping out with the bills once she gets her first paycheck. With a bit of luck the sale of my mum's flat will go through in the next couple of months and our share of that should keep our heads above water.
Sorry all a bit off topic.
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This is the result of all that has happened around the pandemic and the pandemic itself... all those out there who think it's all over should read things like this and be a bit more contrite. Very sorry to hear how difficult it all is and there will be many more like you. Makes me realise how lucky I have been so far. Had it twice, but not left any lasting issues and while I have had to watch the pennies more my job is still pretty stable. Good luck and I very much hope things get better for you.
 
tiggers said:
This is the result of all that has happened around the pandemic and the pandemic itself... all those out there who think it's all over should read things like this and be a bit more contrite. Very sorry to hear how difficult it all is and there will be many more like you. Makes me realise how lucky I have been so far. Had it twice, but not left any lasting issues and while I have had to watch the pennies more my job is still pretty stable. Good luck and I very much hope things get better for you.
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Same views and feelings here. I hope things pick up soon for you and your family @mentalp .
 
gavreid said:
47 126 cases today, 317 deaths (a sharp increase on last week - 192), and 2 308 admissions (5/4 England only, as ever).
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Admissions have past their total peak. In some areas they may still be going up but in others coming down more steeply.

The daily reported deaths (day that the death is reported) have never followed a clear relationship with admissions, which has always struck me as a bit surprising. Yes there was a general phase lag of around a week for peaks etc but the daily number of deaths varies a lot more than the fairly smooth daily admissions data. I have put this down to admissions being roughly 16 times the number of deaths and with a more complicated reporting procedure (data for deaths by actual date of death is much smoother and looks to getting close to the peak), it is likely to be less consistent over time.
 
IanW said:
Admissions have past their total peak. In some areas they may still be going up but in others coming down more steeply.
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I suspect that 2 000 and a bit daily admissions is about as many as the hospitals can take just now - otherwise it's a big coincidence that the two peaks are near identical. I think the concern over deaths is the rate beginning to sneak up among the older and vulnerable groups.
 
gavreid said:
I suspect that 2 000 and a bit daily admissions is about as many as the hospitals can take - otherwise it's a big coincidence that the two peaks are near identical. I think the concern over deaths is the rate beginning to sneak up among the older and vulnerable groups.
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The coincidence goes a bit further as the 2 peaks (January 2022 and April 2022) have the same number of hospital beds occupied. But the good news is that the current number of mechanical ventilation beds in use is roughly a third of the previous peak.

It should be noted that the January 2021 wave had much higher admissions, much higher number of beds in use and much higher use of mechanical beds (and of course much higher number of daily deaths).
 
IanW said:
It should be noted that the January 2021 wave had much higher admissions, much higher number of beds in use and much higher use of mechanical beds (and of course much higher number of daily deaths).
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Yes, absolutely right. The vaccines are helping by a good factor of 100 I think in terms of deaths and serious illness.

All of the extra data within the vaccine surveillance reports has died a death this week.
 
"Long COVID data just out from the ONS TL;DR -1.7 million people now living with long COVID (28 day definition) - that's 1 in 37 people in the commiunity -780,000 have had this for *more than a yr* -at least 334000 got this during the omicron wave (impact since Feb not felt yet)"

There have been increases in *all age groups* during the omicron wave. Increases have been greatest in younger children (1.5 fold increase in 2-11 yrs in a *single month*). We now have almost 150,000 children with long COVID for 4 wks of whom 31,000 have had this for > 1 yr.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1512069599679766528

"We’d heard rumours of a vast surge in #LongCovid cases during Omicron and this confirms the fears: letting rip and saying it’s just flu-like incurs considerable risk of incredibly non trivial, lasting, disease burden and disability, all age-groups. Not flu-like at all really"

https://twitter.com/Daltmann10/status/1512086240698376197?cxt=HHwWioCp6ZWbgfwpAAAA
 
gavreid said:
Yes, absolutely right. The vaccines are helping by a good factor of 100 I think in terms of deaths and serious illness.

All of the extra data within the vaccine surveillance reports has died a death this week.
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With anything C`v now, finding reliable data is not as easy as it was.
So much garbage out the , Google goes into meltdown if you type in the question..
it would be nice to know, for instance, just what the vaccinations we had had are now doing for us, are they keeping us safer from serious illness / death, or waneing badly.
I'm really trying to 'get on' with life, the occasional gig, seeing friends etc, but anything else (shopping etc) then caution is still uppermost.

I know I am safer than I was two yrs ago, but it would be nice to have a resource (other than here which is still a major source of good data) that we coud all pretty much rely on.

Ultra Teflon PM has made sure that stuff like good data is now not freely available as it was..
 
Sonority said:
it would be nice to know, for instance, just what the vaccinations we had had are now doing for us, are they keeping us safer from serious illness / death, or waneing badly.
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https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports

Below is an extract from Daren Austin (on another forum I am a member of) who received an OBE for his work on covid vaccines

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/daren-austin-obe-91a0616

“I read a paper this week where kidney transplant recipients, who are taking immunosuppressive therapy, have had up to five boosters. The good news is that after modifying their dose of mycophenolate, up to 80% serocovert. This is in the absence of Evusheld from AZ, which has shown a few breakthrough infections, notably from BA.1, where it lost 12-30x potency, but regained for BA.2 – which is very good news.”

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.23.22270017v1

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.19.22272575v1

“Anecdotally, when I had it the first time, my resting heart rate doubled to 90 and I couldn’t walk to the end of the garden. Oxygen saturation of 94% and symptoms for about four weeks. Those symptoms would be classed as moderate, not severe. Despite THE paper by Oxford suggesting otherwise, prior to vaccination, seropositivity was not that high – the proportion of the population who had had COVID was only about 10%. So you might not have known anyone who i) had it or ii) was seriously ill with it (unless you knew people in nursing homes or who were particularly vulnerable). After Omicron, it will be much, much higher. Come next winter, we’ll probably all have had it.

This time around has been a world of difference for me. Triple vaccinated, twice (well now thrice) infected, much milder upper respiratory tract infection (for which there is an interesting reason*), and now recovering.

The effects of the vaccine on morbidity and mortality are confounded by strain, but Hong Kong has provided some insight into how pathogenic Omicron is in a less protected population. It’s not been great there to be honest.

*Omicron binds to cells with ACE2, but does not require the TMPRSS2 cleavage enzyme for cell entry. It also has a reduced ability to form syncytia which fuses cells”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41...3283&CJEVENT=694c80d5b68f11ec83083fbf0a180512
 
gavreid said:
Yes, absolutely right. The vaccines are helping by a good factor of 100 I think in terms of deaths and serious illness.
All of the extra data within the vaccine surveillance reports has died a death this week.
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That's so disappointing. One of the takeaways of the pandemic should have been that improved public health surveillance can help to mitigate outbreaks. I have followed the Boston MA sewage sampling site for the past couple of years and it has been a perfect early warning system (as it is warning right now of another rise in cases). Ideally we'd be sampling sewage for Covid, flu, norovirus and a host of other pathogens and alerting people (phone app ? nightly news ?) when there is a local rise with advice on precautions (wear masks indoors, take extra care to sanitize hands). I'm sure this would help to reduce severe illness.
 
Opinion
If we are no longer “following the science,” what are we following?

British ministers have now abandoned any pretence that they are “following the science” on covid-19. In their minutes from 10 February 2022, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) warned against removing access to free testing as it would make it harder for people to take precautionary measures and increase anxiety among those who are clinically vulnerable

https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o930
 
Enfield boy said:
While everyone is looking elsewhere Boris is getting his "let the bodies pile high."
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I think, more than that, the Tory strategy is to run the nhs into the ground, create as much disaffection with services as possible on the back of covid, so that they can break it up and sell it off. I imagine that this kind of thing would be a priority if they are re-elected in '24.
 
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