So, cases and deaths last week reflected Delta's spread and our current immunity level against that. Omicron has to be gauged in terms of where we are now.
The profile changes are (with some fag packet stuff):
1. Omicron spreads faster -> higher cases -> higher Hospitalisations -> higher deaths like for like.
Let's say 10x cases = 10x deaths
2. Split of cases: a bigger proportion of Omicron cases are going to be in the protected rather than unprotected
OK, so you go from the unimmunised having half the cases, to the immunised getting 90% of cases -> 0.2x death rate
3. But, changing the proportion of vaccinated to unvaccinated getting also changes the age profile, since kids are heavily unvaccinated -> 4x death rate
4. Omicron is innately milder (I think confirmed now) -> lower deaths like for like -> 0.4x death rate (tbc from SA next excess mortality which should clarify the large noise : signal still in their data).
5. Immune escape -> reduction in vaccination protection -> increased relative severity in the vaccinated case for case (i.e. severity increases by a bigger factor than cases do) - 2x death rate (note: a UK factor less relevant to SA)
6. Additional vaccination to counter immune escape -> caveat, gains from booster vaccination of the oldest are already substantially, but not entirely, banked in the current figures -> booster vaccination in younger people banks smaller gains -> 0.66x death rate.
So, this fag packet data says for 10x the cases (would equate to 7m people, 10% of population getting it in peak week) 4x the deaths of now (would equate to 3-4k dying in the peak week)
But the range of multipliers here means you can come up with a lot of different outcomes quite reasonably.
Sounds reasonable. My prediction was ~49k deaths for the whole winter, yours would likely be well below that, but still in the same ballpark. Which = a really bad flu season
We can cope with a really bad flu season. The worry has to be what happens when five million working people all need a week in bed, roughly at the same time
UK fusion power company celebrates recruitment from the ... thermonuclear weapons sector.
We’re pleased to announce that Professor Andrew Randewich has joined our Scientific Advisory Board. Professor Randewich is currently Executive Director, Engineering and Science at AWE, which is responsible for the UK Deterrent.. https://twitter.com/FLFusion/status/1471764524655120389
I did my PhD with him. Utter tosser.
I've had a tour of (parts of) AWE, courtesy of a former colleague who worked there (PhD student I did my PhD with at the same institution and a supervisor in common, different fields, some similar techniques). When he worked there he swung us a field trip visit for an undergraduate class our supervisor was taking and I went along as an extra 'adult'. Strictest security I've ever undergone to get into anywhere, which is kind of reassuring, I guess.
I also wrote some software for AWE, for a bomb*. Not sure how morally compromised/how much of a tosser that makes me I'm atoning by being an epidemiologist trying to improve health outcomes so fewer people die an untimely death
*should clarify that perhaps - for a bomb calorimiter, in a study funded by AWE. Nothing to do with nukes, though maybe they had some nefarious purposes for the results. I just wrote the software to analyse the data, didn't know about the funder at the time, but I don't think it would have made me unwilling.
Please don't quote that comment! I'm busy furiously back-pedalling from it. Anyway, it's all a bit hypocritical of me, given that I worked for the MoD for a while in my younger and more naïve days!
Probably doesn't matter unless you're planning on becoming a candidate for $party in the next election. Then you'll have to disown the comments, say they reflect a younger, foolish self, you no longer hold those views, you apologise for any offence caused and - of course - you have nothing against tossers anyway
I thank my lucky stars that I spent my younger years in a time before social media.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
Could it be "90% only suffer mild symptoms" all over again....
Who the fuck do we believe?
On the one hand the data from SA seems to show this variant is all ass and no spank, yet we have UK scientists and German politicians saying we face unprecedented horrors
It's because SA has a lot of pre-existing natural immunity while the UK and Germany have lesser two, one or zero dose immunity. For the UK that situation is rapidly changing for key older groups with the booster programme reaching the oldies, in Germany they have millions of older people with no vaccines and no natural immunity. Omicron will find them where Delta may not have.
Germany also short of vaccines. Their booster programme was scheduled to take until March. Apparently they are looking to buy up some Eastern European antivaxxer countries "excess".
When this hits Eastern Europe like Bulgaria, with hardly any vaccinations, going to be a shit show.
I would take German vaccine "shortages" with a massive pinch of salt. I would be surprised if there were any serious shortages. There are lots of Moderna doses going spare - most of the booster shots around here are Moderna this week. Maybe if you insist on having a Pfizer booster (why?), you might have to look around a bit more to get an appointment right now. Like you say they will probably buy up unused nearly out-of-date stocks from other EU countries. But actual shortages is more spin than anything likely to happen. Lauterbach wants to have enough vaccines available to have a general vaccine mandate in the spring, and maybe have a little dig at the previous government for letting stocks run "low".
It's possible he wants to create scarcity to get people queuing up for fear of having to wait until Easter.
I'd be shocked if Germany wasn't able to source vaccines to get all the boosters done by the end of Jan. I'm sure the UK would do a swap deal on Pfizer, we'll probably have 20-25m leftover from our purchases.
Yes, I also thought there might be an element of trying to get people to sign up for the boosters quicker.
Meanwhile we've just started vaccinating 5-11 year olds, seems to be quite a big program, lots of demand for it but still possible to book slots at vaccination centres (though not with our Kinderarzt practice, who have already allocated all their doses for the next 2 weeks).
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
Could it be "90% only suffer mild symptoms" all over again....
Who the fuck do we believe?
On the one hand the data from SA seems to show this variant is all ass and no spank, yet we have UK scientists and German politicians saying we face unprecedented horrors
It's because SA has a lot of pre-existing natural immunity while the UK and Germany have lesser two, one or zero dose immunity. For the UK that situation is rapidly changing for key older groups with the booster programme reaching the oldies, in Germany they have millions of older people with no vaccines and no natural immunity. Omicron will find them where Delta may not have.
Germany also short of vaccines. Their booster programme was scheduled to take until March. Apparently they are looking to buy up some Eastern European antivaxxer countries "excess".
When this hits Eastern Europe like Bulgaria, with hardly any vaccinations, going to be a shit show.
I would take German vaccine "shortages" with a massive pinch of salt. I would be surprised if there were any serious shortages. There are lots of Moderna doses going spare - most of the booster shots around here are Moderna this week. Maybe if you insist on having a Pfizer booster (why?), you might have to look around a bit more to get an appointment right now. Like you say they will probably buy up unused nearly out-of-date stocks from other EU countries. But actual shortages is more spin than anything likely to happen. Lauterbach wants to have enough vaccines available to have a general vaccine mandate in the spring, and maybe have a little dig at the previous government for letting stocks run "low".
It's possible he wants to create scarcity to get people queuing up for fear of having to wait until Easter.
I'd be shocked if Germany wasn't able to source vaccines to get all the boosters done by the end of Jan. I'm sure the UK would do a swap deal on Pfizer, we'll probably have 20-25m leftover from our purchases.
If they are short what happened to the massive vaccine factory?
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Omicron is acting like any other virus, it is just doing it a lot quicker.
Got to hope that 85% estimate against hospitalisation turns out to be true.
Yes, but I think we can be pretty confident on that. The Imperial College study (using UK data) estimates vaccine efficiency against Omicron (for symptomatic infection) of between 0% and 20% for two-doses of AZ and between 55% and 80% for two doses + booster. This is consistent with other estimates and the lab experiments. Given that all the experts think that protection against severe illness should be better, the central case must be that the triple jabbed should be well protected.
Obviously all this is still very preliminary, so should be treated with some caution.
Look at the table, VE for three doses (and this is for symptomatic infection) is 77% for 3x Pfizer and 73% for AZ/AZ/Pfizer. That means from 1000 people exposed to Omicron at least 750 won't get symptoms. I'd be very interested in their severity stuff when it's ready.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
Yes it's very different, but they are comparing experience in SA now with SA previously, i.e. like for like, and finding much milder outcomes. That may just be down to prior immunity: but immunity levels as measured by antibodies in the UK are as high or higher and ours is vaccine induced rather than prior infection. All the evidence to date is that vaccines provide as good or better protection than infection.
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Ruth Davidson is making a big mistake appearing as apologist for Boris Johnson. It's pretty well known what happens if you hitch your wagon to an incontinent horse. She had a reasonable future once
I didn’t hear the interview that way. Listen to what she said, she was actually scathing about the risible leadership he has inflicted on our country.
She was absolutely superb, and coruscating on Boris without going outside the bounds of what a politician can say about a leader of his or her own party. What a pity that she didn't end up as Conservative Party leader and PM. (Yes, I know all the reasons why that wasn't likely, but still.)
Possibly the best lay ever when she was betting favourite for next Con leader.
The Ruth Davidson project was an empty bad of vacuous nothing supported by kids gloves treatment by her former BBC and media colleagues.
I must say that she has reminded me increasingly of Mr Johnson in other respects - her single policy programme (No Surrender to Indyref 2, spoken with a frequency and relevance which would have embarrassed M. Porcius Cato the Censor), her remodelling the Scons in her own image, and her playing the fool to photographers to try and gain power.
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Because its not a Buzz Lightyear variant that can go TO INFINITE AND BEYOND!
Exponential growth taps out when the virus struggles to find new hosts. The projected doubling the government is fearmongering about would if believed mean everyone in the entire country would be infected by Christmas Day. Since given existing immunity levels that's extremely improbable, it seems equally probable that cases will naturally stop rising just about as fast as they started.
Ruth Davidson is making a big mistake appearing as apologist for Boris Johnson. It's pretty well known what happens if you hitch your wagon to an incontinent horse. She had a reasonable future once
I didn’t hear the interview that way. Listen to what she said, she was actually scathing about the risible leadership he has inflicted on our country.
She was absolutely superb, and coruscating on Boris without going outside the bounds of what a politician can say about a leader of his or her own party. What a pity that she didn't end up as Conservative Party leader and PM. (Yes, I know all the reasons why that wasn't likely, but still.)
Possibly the best lay ever when she was betting favourite for next Con leader.
The Ruth Davidson project was an empty bad of vacuous nothing supported by kids gloves treatment by her former BBC and media colleagues.
Recent history suggests that is no bar to the highest office in the land.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
You're not a Remainer but you are an expert level fearmonger afraid of OMICRON THE BIG FLUFFY KITTEN.
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Because its not a Buzz Lightyear variant that can go TO INFINITE AND BEYOND!
Exponential growth taps out when the virus struggles to find new hosts. The projected doubling the government is fearmongering about would if believed mean everyone in the entire country would be infected by Christmas Day. Since given existing immunity levels that's extremely improbable, it seems equally probable that cases will naturally stop rising just about as fast as they started.
I assume there is also some spontaneous behaviour modification, as indeed we're seeing big time here in the UK with people locking themselves down ahead of Christmas.
Bozo blaming the media for the loss . Apparently they didn’t report what he wanted them to and too much attention was on things like partygate . He really is a pathetic clown .
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Unherd had an academic modeller on from SA. He made a good point about a fundamental flaw in the thinking in regards to transmission (and also the very simple SIR model widely used). There is not only behavioural change when spread starts, but actually people have social networks that aren't uniformly connected both in the numbers of edges, but frequency that you interact with them.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
You're not a Remainer but you are an expert level fearmonger afraid of OMICRON THE BIG FLUFFY KITTEN.
Big fluffy kitten might be pushing it. Evidence so far seems to indicate Omicron is a cheetah. It's galloped across the Veldt at record breaking speed, is not something you'd particularly want to face down in a fight, but you would probably choose it over being mauled by a man eating Delta Lion.
Bozo blaming the media for the loss . Apparently they didn’t report what he wanted them to and too much attention was on things like partygate . He really is a pathetic clown .
I really hope he's pissed off the media so much that they now have it in for him. Has had an easy ride from a compliant and frightened press for far too long.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
Yes it's very different, but they are comparing experience in SA now with SA previously, i.e. like for like, and finding much milder outcomes. That may just be down to prior immunity: but immunity levels as measured by antibodies in the UK are as high or higher and ours is vaccine induced rather than prior infection. All the evidence to date is that vaccines provide as good or better protection than infection.
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Some truth in this, but you have to remember you are dealing with a world which has endured TWO YEARS of a terrifying global pandemic, the biggest worldwide crisis since 1945, and maybe 20 million dead and entire economies decimated. And at the beginning we were all super complacent (except me) and ever since we’ve all been told ‘it’s nearly over’, ‘twelve more weeks’, ‘this is freedom day’, ‘the vaccines have saved us’, only for Covid to return to maul us, horribly
It is not surprising people now err, perhaps, on the side of pessimism, and are receptive to gloomier voices. The optimists have been wrong time and again
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Unherd had an academic modeller on from SA. He made a good point about a fundamental flaw in the thinking in regards to transmission (and also the very simple SIR model widely used). There is not only behavioural change when spread starts, but actually people have social networks that aren't uniformly connected both in the numbers of edges, but frequency that you interact with them.
Yes, quite so, although on the latter point the sheer transmissibility of Omicron would suggest that it would jump across those islands of social networks sufficiently often and quickly that, on a population level, the net effect would look pretty uniform.
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Unherd had an academic modeller on from SA. He made a good point about a fundamental flaw in the thinking in regards to transmission (and also the very simple SIR model widely used). There is not only behavioural change when spread starts, but actually people have social networks that aren't uniformly connected both in the numbers of edges, but frequency that you interact with them.
Yes, quite so, although on the latter point the sheer transmissibility of Omicron would suggest that it would jump across those islands of social networks sufficiently often and quickly that, on a population level, the net effect would look pretty uniform.
It becomes slower though, you hit more natural immunity, more people being sick and in bed etc etc etc.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
You're not a Remainer but you are an expert level fearmonger afraid of OMICRON THE BIG FLUFFY KITTEN.
Big fluffy kitten might be pushing it. Evidence so far seems to indicate Omicron is a cheetah. It's galloped across the Veldt at record breaking speed, is not something you'd particularly want to face down in a fight, but you would probably choose it over being mauled by a man eating Delta Lion.
Not if there is a hundred cheetahs and seven lion and you have twelve bullets for your gun
Very very sorry PB-ers maybe for sure I drunk too much sorry! and jumping up and down I threw up well over carpet and lots of things. My girlfriend came out didn’t say anything or cuddle me just shook head and went back. I dried it with hair dryer and then vacuumed it up. Sat on pot and went to bed.
What a night! Winning my first political bet! The fact I feel so hungover and person I live with trying to work from home is complaining about bad smell means I did it this in the right way?
Naughty naughty, vomit will smell lovely for a year or two
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
A guy I met in the Balearics this week is a smart, rich anti-vaxxer. He knows someone that ‘died’ of the jab, hence his abhorrence. I’ve no idea if that’s true
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
You're not a Remainer but you are an expert level fearmonger afraid of OMICRON THE BIG FLUFFY KITTEN.
Big fluffy kitten might be pushing it. Evidence so far seems to indicate Omicron is a cheetah. It's galloped across the Veldt at record breaking speed, is not something you'd particularly want to face down in a fight, but you would probably choose it over being mauled by a man eating Delta Lion.
Not if there is a hundred cheetahs and seven lion and you have twelve bullets for your gun
The one set of figures which is puzzling me is the apparent fall-off in cases in SA, especially Guateng. Maybe it's just an artifact of limitations in the testing, but it's hard to understand what would explain such a rapid reversal from what is looking increasingly like the peak.
Unherd had an academic modeller on from SA. He made a good point about a fundamental flaw in the thinking in regards to transmission (and also the very simple SIR model widely used). There is not only behavioural change when spread starts, but actually people have social networks that aren't uniformly connected both in the numbers of edges, but frequency that you interact with them.
Yes, quite so, although on the latter point the sheer transmissibility of Omicron would suggest that it would jump across those islands of social networks sufficiently often and quickly that, on a population level, the net effect would look pretty uniform.
It depends whether those connections between different social groups are random, or through relatively fixed nodes of people who connect groups perhaps because of their occupation, or gregarious nature. You are implicitly assuming it is mostly random, but if it is mostly fixed, then it is possible that these people get hit early on, pass it on to a lot of people, but then act as a break on further transmission.
I suspect this is a case of something where a lot of interesting research is possible, but hasn't been done yet, and of course the structure of human society is a moving target, which complicates matters somewhat.
Got to hope that 85% estimate against hospitalisation turns out to be true.
Yes, but I think we can be pretty confident on that. The Imperial College study (using UK data) estimates vaccine efficiency against Omicron (for symptomatic infection) of between 0% and 20% for two-doses of AZ and between 55% and 80% for two doses + booster. This is consistent with other estimates and the lab experiments. Given that all the experts think that protection against severe illness should be better, the central case must be that the triple jabbed should be well protected.
Obviously all this is still very preliminary, so should be treated with some caution.
Look at the table, VE for three doses (and this is for symptomatic infection) is 77% for 3x Pfizer and 73% for AZ/AZ/Pfizer. That means from 1000 people exposed to Omicron at least 750 won't get symptoms. I'd be very interested in their severity stuff when it's ready.
Talked with my respiratory illness virologist friend at NIH today. His view is that:
1. we have essentially 2 diseases now - COVID (all prior variants) and omicron 2. we won't know about the severity* of omicron until we have more data 3. we don't know whether omicron will kill off Delta or it the two will run concurrently 4. the answers to 2 and 3 will define whether omicron represents good news in the form of COVID being well and truly on its way to being an endemic inconvenience rather than a global pandemic terror, or just more bad news.
Edit: * in older, white northern hemisphere populations with high comorbidity rates than RSA.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
A guy I met in the Balearics this week is a smart, rich anti-vaxxer. He knows someone that ‘died’ of the jab, hence his abhorrence. I’ve no idea if that’s true
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
I have seen this argument already among anti-vaxxers...
"Yolande Kenward's vote total of 3 is the lowest ever number of votes polled by any candidate in a by-election since 1918"
I'm surprised she got so many votes. Just found this of hers on youtube from 2016
"A video to support my election petition lodged at the UK Royal Courts of Justice on 24 June 2016. The papers lodged were titled - "The misuse of psychiatrists to cover up for avoidable deaths and to rig the Maidstone and Weald general election results, the London Borough of Sutton results and the referendum"."
It goes on for an hour and fifty minutes. She's nuts.
Got to hope that 85% estimate against hospitalisation turns out to be true.
Yes, but I think we can be pretty confident on that. The Imperial College study (using UK data) estimates vaccine efficiency against Omicron (for symptomatic infection) of between 0% and 20% for two-doses of AZ and between 55% and 80% for two doses + booster. This is consistent with other estimates and the lab experiments. Given that all the experts think that protection against severe illness should be better, the central case must be that the triple jabbed should be well protected.
Obviously all this is still very preliminary, so should be treated with some caution.
Look at the table, VE for three doses (and this is for symptomatic infection) is 77% for 3x Pfizer and 73% for AZ/AZ/Pfizer. That means from 1000 people exposed to Omicron at least 750 won't get symptoms. I'd be very interested in their severity stuff when it's ready.
Talked with my respiratory illness virologist friend at NIH today. His view is that:
1. we have essentially 2 diseases now - COVID (all prior variants) and omicron 2. we won't know about the severity* of omicron until we have more data 3. we don't know whether omicron will kill off Delta or it the two will run concurrently 4. the answers to 2 and 3 will define whether omicron represents good news in the form of COVID being well and truly on its way to being an endemic inconvenience rather than a global pandemic terror, or just more bad news.
Edit: * in older, white northern hemisphere populations with high comorbidity rates than RSA.
There's good news on 3 from London. Delta is already in retreat, heading towards extinction.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
A guy I met in the Balearics this week is a smart, rich anti-vaxxer. He knows someone that ‘died’ of the jab, hence his abhorrence. I’ve no idea if that’s true
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
They do against hospitalisation and the booster also works against severe symptoms.
The first person to die of Omicron in the UK was unvacinnated
PS He agreed with my theorizing that if omicron is now an upper rather than lower respiratory tract infection (which, along with the higher virus reproduction rates in the bronchi leading to higher shedded viral loads, helps explain why it is way more transmissible), then that is consistent with expecting it to be a less severe illness than previous variants.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
I would suggest that, if Paterson's communications from his constituents had reflected that bizarre and outlandish theory, then he would have stayed on and fought a recall by-election (and won).
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
Yes it's very different, but they are comparing experience in SA now with SA previously, i.e. like for like, and finding much milder outcomes. That may just be down to prior immunity: but immunity levels as measured by antibodies in the UK are as high or higher and ours is vaccine induced rather than prior infection. All the evidence to date is that vaccines provide as good or better protection than infection.
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Some truth in this, but you have to remember you are dealing with a world which has endured TWO YEARS of a terrifying global pandemic, the biggest worldwide crisis since 1945, and maybe 20 million dead and entire economies decimated. And at the beginning we were all super complacent (except me) and ever since we’ve all been told ‘it’s nearly over’, ‘twelve more weeks’, ‘this is freedom day’, ‘the vaccines have saved us’, only for Covid to return to maul us, horribly
It is not surprising people now err, perhaps, on the side of pessimism, and are receptive to gloomier voices. The optimists have been wrong time and again
So have the pessimists. We've all been wrong sometimes and right sometimes. Pessimist fails include:
- No vaccines for at least 2 years - AZ vaccine pratiquement inefficace - Delta causes more severe disease in children - 100,000 cases a day in July
Optimist fails:
- Herd immunity by summer 2020 - Immune dark matter and massive levels of asymptomatic infection - Covid intrinsically stable with limited chances for mutation - Alpha wave was the last - Covid can be eliminated completely through testing and contact tracing
I’m told that No 10 is aware that even if they try to defend this, they know perception matters, so Case’s position overseeing the party inquiry seems untenable.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
Could it be the opposite...they saw him a sleazy as well? Some people get very funny about MP doing second jobs, let alone the perception they might then be using them to influence things.
UKHSA still saying there is no evidence (YET) of a weakening of severity yet with Omicron compared to Delta.
Worth remembering also that the South African experts were saying it was only 29% milder, which is obviously nice to have and better than the converse, but which is not very significant in the overall picture.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
I would suggest that, if Paterson's communications from his constituents had reflected that bizarre and outlandish theory, then he would have stayed on and fought a recall by-election (and won).
My tongue was in the vicinity of my cheek when I posted that.
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
Either the South African doctors or the UK medical establishment are wrong, and I really don't know what to make of the current situation.
One interesting suggestion I have heard is that UK scientists tend to look down on the quality of SA's data gathering ; on the other hand, the concern seems not to be confined not only to the UK, but also the rest of Northern Europe too.
For anyone anywhere in a senior public health position, it's obviously far the wiser position to be safe than sorry, clearly . If the lead scientists turn out to be wrong, governments won't be so grateful, in the long-term, however.
I’m told that No 10 is aware that even if they try to defend this, they know perception matters, so Case’s position overseeing the party inquiry seems untenable.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
I would suggest that, if Paterson's communications from his constituents had reflected that bizarre and outlandish theory, then he would have stayed on and fought a recall by-election (and won).
My tongue was in the vicinity of my cheek when I posted that.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
A guy I met in the Balearics this week is a smart, rich anti-vaxxer. He knows someone that ‘died’ of the jab, hence his abhorrence. I’ve no idea if that’s true
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
They do against hospitalisation and the booster also works against severe symptoms.
The first person to die of Omicron in the UK was unvacinnated
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
PS He agreed with my theorizing that if omicron is now an upper rather than lower respiratory tract infection (which, along with the higher virus reproduction rates in the bronchi leading to higher shedded viral loads, helps explain why it is way more transmissible), then that is consistent with expecting it to be a less severe illness than previous variants.
That's pretty much what the University of Hong Kong study says.
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
"Reported UK figures for vaccinations will not include an update for England in today's release. We are aiming to add figures for England later today. The current estimate is 7pm."
UKHSA still saying there is no evidence (YET) of a weakening of severity yet with Omicron compared to Delta.
Worth remembering also that the South African experts were saying it was only 29% milder, which is obviously nice to have and better than the converse, but which is not very significant in the overall picture.
For those admitted to hospital in SA the average stay for Delta was 9 days for Omicron it is just over 2.
Also Omicron has been going in Gauteng for 6 weeks. Compare the situation in the Summer with Delta to the situation now in Gauteng. The Premier of Gauteng said yesterday that there were no problems in the hospitals in Gauteng. There remains no lockdown in SA.
From a academic point of view it might not look milder in a laboratory but the real world evidence is there for all to see.
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
Yes it's very different, but they are comparing experience in SA now with SA previously, i.e. like for like, and finding much milder outcomes. That may just be down to prior immunity: but immunity levels as measured by antibodies in the UK are as high or higher and ours is vaccine induced rather than prior infection. All the evidence to date is that vaccines provide as good or better protection than infection.
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Some truth in this, but you have to remember you are dealing with a world which has endured TWO YEARS of a terrifying global pandemic, the biggest worldwide crisis since 1945, and maybe 20 million dead and entire economies decimated. And at the beginning we were all super complacent (except me) and ever since we’ve all been told ‘it’s nearly over’, ‘twelve more weeks’, ‘this is freedom day’, ‘the vaccines have saved us’, only for Covid to return to maul us, horribly
It is not surprising people now err, perhaps, on the side of pessimism, and are receptive to gloomier voices. The optimists have been wrong time and again
So have the pessimists. We've all been wrong sometimes and right sometimes. Pessimist fails include:
- No vaccines for at least 2 years - AZ vaccine pratiquement inefficace - Delta causes more severe disease in children - 100,000 cases a day in July
Optimist fails:
- Herd immunity by summer 2020 - Immune dark matter and massive levels of asymptomatic infection - Covid intrinsically stable with limited chances for mutation - Alpha wave was the last - Covid can be eliminated completely through testing and contact tracing
You are right. This virus has confounded everyone.
For the optimism coming from my virologist and immunologist friends, I have to qualify your list as mainly applying to non-virologist optimists. From my friends within the research community: 1. none of them believed in either herd immunity by summer 2020 (they all talked of at least 3 seasonal waves), or immune dark matter 2. they'd still argue that COVID is more stable than many viruses, and that the number of mutations is more a function of how many cases there have been globally (and particularly in the immune-compromised). So they might argue they were not wrong on this one within their own terms of reference, but that their views on this have been misinterpreted 3. none believed there would only be one wave 4. none had much faith in test and trace in terms of eliminating COVID (that was more an epidemiologist thing, but even the most experienced of them realized the numbers of infections involved in COVID meant this was a loser from the start.) That said, they track and trace data has provided vital insights into the spread and evolution of the virus.
UKHSA still saying there is no evidence (YET) of a weakening of severity yet with Omicron compared to Delta.
Worth remembering also that the South African experts were saying it was only 29% milder, which is obviously nice to have and better than the converse, but which is not very significant in the overall picture.
For those admitted to hospital in SA the average stay for Delta was 9 days for Omicron it is just over 2.
Also Omicron has been going in Gauteng for 6 weeks. Compare the situation in the Summer with Delta to the situation now in Gauteng. The Premier of Gauteng said yesterday that there were no problems in the hospitals in Gauteng. There remains no lockdown in SA.
From a academic point of view it might not look milder in a laboratory but the real world evidence is there for all to see.
The abiding memory of Delta for me was the news clips showing Indian families desperate for oxygen cylinders for their loved ones, back in April.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
So the South African reports about Omicron that make the disease look "milder" are because of things like the previous variants having already killed vulnerable people in earlier waves, those cases which are reinfections having some immunity now, and that there is now a part of the population there that has been vaccinated since those earlier waves.
So it's not a case of the disease being any milder, but that the environment and circumstances in which virus is operating have changed the outcomes compared to what would happen in an earlier wave.
Which means you really, really do not want an unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated population being hit by Omicron as your first significant wave of infection.
No.
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
The big difference you seem to be forgetting is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people who were previously infected and/or vaccinated. It may or may not be significantly milder for people with no immunity.
Yes, I think this needs to be drilled home by all governments, Omicron may be milder (probably is) for people who have had a previous infection or three vaccine doses but for people who have no immunity it may end up being a disaster because of how rapidly it spreads. There seems to be a new antivaxxer meme going around that Omicron means that they are right and didn't need to get the vaccine because Omicron proves the virus became less deadly naturally.
A guy I met in the Balearics this week is a smart, rich anti-vaxxer. He knows someone that ‘died’ of the jab, hence his abhorrence. I’ve no idea if that’s true
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
I think you'll find a very large number of anti-vaxxers 'know' someone that die from the jab. He can't be particularly smart if that is part of his belief system. Successful, perhaps.
For those admitted to hospital in SA the average stay for Delta was 9 days for Omicron it is just over 2.
Also Omicron has been going in Gauteng for 6 weeks. Compare the situation in the Summer with Delta to the situation now in Gauteng. The Premier of Gauteng said yesterday that there were no problems in the hospitals in Gauteng. There remains no lockdown in SA.
From a academic point of view it might not look milder in a laboratory but the real world evidence is there for all to see.
You need to be very careful what you mean here. Milder intrinsically, or milder because in this wave most of the infected people already have a lot of protection through previous infection/vaccination?
"Reported UK figures for vaccinations will not include an update for England in today's release. We are aiming to add figures for England later today. The current estimate is 7pm."
Excel clearly couldn't handle the large numbers.
Earlier on this year I think @Alistair jokingly predicted 200,000 cases a day.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
The thing that I don't understand is that OP seemed to me to be an old school Tory type who valued integrity and service. He evidently genuinely thought that he had done no wrong.
I have looked briefly at what he did and it does seem as though he did act wrongly.
But he and perhaps many of his constituents thought otherwise.
"Reported UK figures for vaccinations will not include an update for England in today's release. We are aiming to add figures for England later today. The current estimate is 7pm."
Excel clearly couldn't handle the large numbers.
Maybe they had an integer overflow once they reached 2^20.
⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.
➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered. ft.com/content/489316…
No evidence it's less severe is of course rubbish.
They didn't find any in their tiny data sample. There's plenty of evidence from other sources. It may turn out to be confounded, but there's indisputably evidence for it being milder.
Hmm. There is ‘some’ evidence for it being milder IN SOUTH AFRICA
Which, as we all now know, is a very different Petri dish to an advanced but older western nation with high vax levels
Like everyone, I’m praying that it IS milder, everywhere. But we just dunno yet.
It’s worth noting that the source of doctor death’s tweet is John Burn Murdoch on the FT, consistently one of the most intelligent, measured and insightful journalists throughout the pandemic
Yes, there is some evidence it's milder in South Africa. Than delta was in South Africa. For all age groups.
So I'm not sure how us being massively better vaccinated than them makes that questionable. Either it's equally dangerous but we're better vaccinated - in which case great, we'll have an even bigger improvement. Or it's inherantly milder, even better.
A lot of people seem to have got themselves into the mindset that any form of optimism, or encouraging evidence, is a sign of complacency and must be ignored or ridiculed. I think there is a big "don't jinx it" level of superstition out there, understandably. For the same reason I dared not offer any optimistic prediction on the by-election last night but convinced myself it was clearly going to be a comfortable Tory hold.
There is a political element too, among opponents of the government. Boris has so successfully come to associate himself with British boosterism and any sense that the country is doing well, that a whole class of commentators sees it as anathema that anything good can happen in here. That to imply Omicron might be a bit milder based on data from South Africa means you are pro-Tory and most probably a Brexiteer. As a woke Liberal remoaner who is nonetheless highly sceptical about future lockdowns and cautiously optimistic about the data coming out of SA this politicisation of what should be neutral science is depressing. And from my own side too.
The worst elements - the millenarians for want of a better word - are increasingly describing Covid in biblical terms, as a moral destroyer sent to punish us for our libertarian sins, and they are sounding increasingly anti-vax about it. In the rush to deny any form of optimism or complacency about Omicron they are literally filling Twitter with statements that vaccines don't work, going so far as telling us SA is different from Britain or the US because they have more natural immunity rather than vaccination. It's increasingly like a morbid Covid version of the horseshoe theory.
SA is very different to the UK. Just as South Korea is, or Peru, or New Zealand, or Russia. It is not some anti-Boris Remainer pro-lockdown conspiracy to be properly cautious about the encouraging data from Pretoria, and what it might mean for London
For a start I voted for Boris, I’m a Leaver, and I fear and loathe lockdowns. I desperately want this plague over and some of my old life back, I want my friends and family to be safe and well, I want my girls to grow up in a world that isn’t terrified of disease
But Covid has consistently surprised on the downside. Every time we think we’ve beaten it, the fucker returns.
Being open but wary in regards to good news is entirely justified. Indeed it is the only sane approach
Yes it's very different, but they are comparing experience in SA now with SA previously, i.e. like for like, and finding much milder outcomes. That may just be down to prior immunity: but immunity levels as measured by antibodies in the UK are as high or higher and ours is vaccine induced rather than prior infection. All the evidence to date is that vaccines provide as good or better protection than infection.
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Some truth in this, but you have to remember you are dealing with a world which has endured TWO YEARS of a terrifying global pandemic, the biggest worldwide crisis since 1945, and maybe 20 million dead and entire economies decimated. And at the beginning we were all super complacent (except me) and ever since we’ve all been told ‘it’s nearly over’, ‘twelve more weeks’, ‘this is freedom day’, ‘the vaccines have saved us’, only for Covid to return to maul us, horribly
It is not surprising people now err, perhaps, on the side of pessimism, and are receptive to gloomier voices. The optimists have been wrong time and again
My guess is there will be an upper bound the number, obviously because of capacity, but also just people not bothering to do tests (either laziness or deliberately as they don't want to chance they are positive).
Ruth Davidson is making a big mistake appearing as apologist for Boris Johnson. It's pretty well known what happens if you hitch your wagon to an incontinent horse. She had a reasonable future once
I didn’t hear the interview that way. Listen to what she said, she was actually scathing about the risible leadership he has inflicted on our country.
She was absolutely superb, and coruscating on Boris without going outside the bounds of what a politician can say about a leader of his or her own party. What a pity that she didn't end up as Conservative Party leader and PM. (Yes, I know all the reasons why that wasn't likely, but still.)
Possibly the best lay ever when she was betting favourite for next Con leader.
The Ruth Davidson project was an empty bad of vacuous nothing supported by kids gloves treatment by her former BBC and media colleagues.
I must say that she has reminded me increasingly of Mr Johnson in other respects - her single policy programme (No Surrender to Indyref 2, spoken with a frequency and relevance which would have embarrassed M. Porcius Cato the Censor), her remodelling the Scons in her own image, and her playing the fool to photographers to try and gain power.
Frankly, rubbish. She did an amazing job revitalising the Scottish Tories but was knocked off course by Boris and Brexit. A very talented politician who has had the sense, and self-knowledge not to hang around too long, which is a rare attribute for a pol.
Henry Zeffman @hzeffman · 12m EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
Henry Zeffman @hzeffman · 12m EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
It makes you wonder what absolute morons work in government to not even think well if we are going to have a bit of a doo against the rules, we probably shouldn't write in the calendar "BIG ILLEGAL RULE BREAKING CHRISTMAS PISS UP", at least call it "PRE-CHRISTMAS STRATEGY MEETING".
The sheer shamblaciousness of this government is an absolute delight, or at least would be if they weren't in government. They may have exceeded their already world-beating record of shamblaciousness if they've appointed a civil servant who had held an allegedly illegal Xmas party to run their investigation into an allegedly illegal Xmas party. Bravo!
My guess is there will be an upper bound the number, obviously because of capacity, but also just people not bothering to do tests (either laziness or deliberately as they don't want to chance they are positive).
We're not there yet - positivity rate 5.5% which is pretty good given the explosion in cases (and orders of magnitude better than some of our peers)
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
My guess is there will be an upper bound the number, obviously because of capacity, but also just people not bothering to do tests (either laziness or deliberately as they don't want to chance they are positive).
"Reported UK figures for vaccinations will not include an update for England in today's release. We are aiming to add figures for England later today. The current estimate is 7pm."
Excel clearly couldn't handle the large numbers.
Earlier on this year I think @Alistair jokingly predicted 200,000 cases a day.
Henry Zeffman @hzeffman · 12m EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
It makes you wonder what absolute morons work in government to not even think well if we are going to have a bit of a doo against the rules, we probably shouldn't write in the calendar "BIG ILLEGAL RULE BREAKING CHRISTMAS PISS UP", at least call it "PRE-CHRISTMAS STRATEGY MEETING".
They are surely just left with the rules dont apply at Downing St excuse?
My guess is there will be an upper bound the number, obviously because of capacity, but also just people not bothering to do tests (either laziness or deliberately as they don't want to chance they are positive).
The 9 day streak of 99,999 tests would be sort of funny to see.
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
Ruth Davidson is making a big mistake appearing as apologist for Boris Johnson. It's pretty well known what happens if you hitch your wagon to an incontinent horse. She had a reasonable future once
I didn’t hear the interview that way. Listen to what she said, she was actually scathing about the risible leadership he has inflicted on our country.
She was absolutely superb, and coruscating on Boris without going outside the bounds of what a politician can say about a leader of his or her own party. What a pity that she didn't end up as Conservative Party leader and PM. (Yes, I know all the reasons why that wasn't likely, but still.)
Possibly the best lay ever when she was betting favourite for next Con leader.
The Ruth Davidson project was an empty bad of vacuous nothing supported by kids gloves treatment by her former BBC and media colleagues.
I must say that she has reminded me increasingly of Mr Johnson in other respects - her single policy programme (No Surrender to Indyref 2, spoken with a frequency and relevance which would have embarrassed M. Porcius Cato the Censor), her remodelling the Scons in her own image, and her playing the fool to photographers to try and gain power.
Frankly, rubbish. She did an amazing job revitalising the Scottish Tories but was knocked off course by Boris and Brexit. A very talented politician who has had the sense, and self-knowledge not to hang around too long, which is a rare attribute for a pol.
Talented in the sense that Mr Johnson is, I agree. She revitalised the Tories by exterminating most of the old guard - which is entirely consistent with my point; and playing the fool to photographers does not a policy campaign make.
Have we discussed the possibility that the result in North Salop was entirely down to Owen Paterson's personal vote not transferring over?
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
The thing that I don't understand is that OP seemed to me to be an old school Tory type who valued integrity and service. He evidently genuinely thought that he had done no wrong.
I have looked briefly at what he did and it does seem as though he did act wrongly.
But he and perhaps many of his constituents thought otherwise.
I don't expect that the drubbing was anything much to do with Owen Paterson. Voters rarely blame the replacement candidate for the misdoings of the one who's just resigned. (See Eastleigh, for example).
Comments
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1471861200715669508?s=20
We can cope with a really bad flu season. The worry has to be what happens when five million working people all need a week in bed, roughly at the same time
you do not have to compare this surge in SA with previous Peaks, you can compare the rates of cases to hospitalisations now to the same ratio a month ago. same population, same place, only a small change in weather or vaccination levels compared to a month ago, the ratio have moved dramatically, with many less hospitalisation for every 100 cases. and we are now seeing a big share of covid in hospitals being incidental cases of no symptom's but identified while in for other reasons, a month ago this was a trivial proportion of the corvid hospitalisations.
We have a milder version of covid starting to hit now, AND in a much more protected population.
Meanwhile we've just started vaccinating 5-11 year olds, seems to be quite a big program, lots of demand for it but still possible to book slots at vaccination centres (though not with our Kinderarzt practice, who have already allocated all their doses for the next 2 weeks).
Joint report with @Annaisaac https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-simon-case-downing-street-london/
I agree we should be cautious over-interpreting data from a very different country. But the thing that gets my goat is the asymmetry of reactions. Looks at the Twitter comments on the Imperial study referenced up-thread: immediate, typically unquestioning credence. No scepticism. Then look at the scepticism afforded to any South African study showing positive outcomes.
We can be sure too that if the now famous Ms Coetzee were on TV warning the world how horrendous this new killer variant is, and how South African hospitals are being overwhelmed by the stench of death, we'd be hearing far less of the "but SA is different" from the blue hearts here.
Exponential growth taps out when the virus struggles to find new hosts. The projected doubling the government is fearmongering about would if believed mean everyone in the entire country would be infected by Christmas Day. Since given existing immunity levels that's extremely improbable, it seems equally probable that cases will naturally stop rising just about as fast as they started.
https://twitter.com/LeviYonit/status/1471821911827091459?s=20
It is not surprising people now err, perhaps, on the side of pessimism, and are receptive to gloomier voices. The optimists have been wrong time and again
"Which each new revelation there is growing evidence of a culture of turning a blind eye to the rules."
https://order-order.com/2021/12/17/cabinet-secretarys-office-hosted-christmas-parties-last-december/ https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1471867146187816960/photo/1
The news that vaccines ‘don’t really work against Omicron’ has only confirmed his belief system
I suspect this is a case of something where a lot of interesting research is possible, but hasn't been done yet, and of course the structure of human society is a moving target, which complicates matters somewhat.
1. we have essentially 2 diseases now - COVID (all prior variants) and omicron
2. we won't know about the severity* of omicron until we have more data
3. we don't know whether omicron will kill off Delta or it the two will run concurrently
4. the answers to 2 and 3 will define whether omicron represents good news in the form of COVID being well and truly on its way to being an endemic inconvenience rather than a global pandemic terror, or just more bad news.
Edit: * in older, white northern hemisphere populations with high comorbidity rates than RSA.
"A video to support my election petition lodged at the UK Royal Courts of Justice on 24 June 2016. The papers lodged were titled - "The misuse of psychiatrists to cover up for avoidable deaths and to rig the Maidstone and Weald general election results, the London Borough of Sutton results and the referendum"."
It goes on for an hour and fifty minutes. She's nuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HknxjjlsuzM
Perhaps the voters of North Salop thought Boris Johnson and the wider Tory party treated O-Patz very shabbily ?
The first person to die of Omicron in the UK was unvacinnated
UKHSA still saying there is no evidence yet in the UK of a weakening of severity with Omicron compared to Delta.
- No vaccines for at least 2 years
- AZ vaccine pratiquement inefficace
- Delta causes more severe disease in children
- 100,000 cases a day in July
Optimist fails:
- Herd immunity by summer 2020
- Immune dark matter and massive levels of asymptomatic infection
- Covid intrinsically stable with limited chances for mutation
- Alpha wave was the last
- Covid can be eliminated completely through testing and contact tracing
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1471870092854153220
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-simon-case-downing-street-london/
What could possibly go wrong?
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-question-aides-seen-at-tory-hq-lockdown-party-s3c9zxl0t
One interesting suggestion I have heard is that UK scientists tend to look down on the quality of SA's data gathering ; on the other hand, the concern seems not to be confined not only to the UK, but also the rest of Northern Europe too.
For anyone anywhere in a senior public health position, it's obviously far the wiser position to be safe than sorry, clearly . If the lead scientists turn out to be wrong, governments won't be so grateful, in the long-term, however.
We'd get to the bottom of this story.
Excel clearly couldn't handle the large numbers.
Also Omicron has been going in Gauteng for 6 weeks. Compare the situation in the Summer with Delta to the situation now in Gauteng. The Premier of Gauteng said yesterday that there were no problems in the hospitals in Gauteng. There remains no lockdown in SA.
From a academic point of view it might not look milder in a laboratory but the real world evidence is there for all to see.
For the optimism coming from my virologist and immunologist friends, I have to qualify your list as mainly applying to non-virologist optimists. From my friends within the research community:
1. none of them believed in either herd immunity by summer 2020 (they all talked of at least 3 seasonal waves), or immune dark matter
2. they'd still argue that COVID is more stable than many viruses, and that the number of mutations is more a function of how many cases there have been globally (and particularly in the immune-compromised). So they might argue they were not wrong on this one within their own terms of reference, but that their views on this have been misinterpreted
3. none believed there would only be one wave
4. none had much faith in test and trace in terms of eliminating COVID (that was more an epidemiologist thing, but even the most experienced of them realized the numbers of infections involved in COVID meant this was a loser from the start.) That said, they track and trace data has provided vital insights into the spread and evolution of the virus.
He can't be particularly smart if that is part of his belief system. Successful, perhaps.
He might be right after all.
I have looked briefly at what he did and it does seem as though he did act wrongly.
But he and perhaps many of his constituents thought otherwise.
Henry Zeffman
@hzeffman
· 12m
EXCL: Simon Case and team had a Christmas party on Dec 17 2020 at 5.30 pm in room 103 of the Cabinet Office. The digital calendar invites sent in advance called it "Christmas party!"
Raises serious questions about his investigation into No 10 parties
Professionally I've also been described as somebody who is good at drowning kittens.
I can do the difficult things no one else wants to do.