I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
That is a load of straw man arguments lumped together.
Vaccination hesitancy stems from the government.
Why would we need restrictions if vaccines are so effective? Why do people need to be careful?
If someone was selling you a car, and they said at the same time you needed insurance against it breaking down after a year, wouldn't you think twice about buying the thing in the first place?
Car manufacturers make a lot of money on warranties, and we still need restrictions because not everyone is vaccinated yet.
Tell that to the poor folk in Gibraltar. 100% vaccination. Lockdown for Christmas.
If 100% vaccination truly did mean freedom, I'm sure all but the most nutty refusiks would fall into line. Is the government even promising that? or committing to it? Nope/
They rule nothing out, as ever. And that means restrictions could be brought in post 100% vaccination.
I thought that Gibraltar story had been thoroughly debunked as complete nonsense?
"Today I am therefore relieved to be able to tell you that I am announcing no further restrictions at all. There is today no requirement to restrict your civil liberties in order to protect life or the GHA’s ability to protect life."
If you actually read that speech in full, you will see the guy says we are not imposing new restrictions, because we never actually repealed the old ones....
OK, how about you show us evidence that there were actually restrictions.
He says they cancelled some big public events and maintained mask-wearing on buses and in shops.
Coronavirus was probably "unlikely" to transfer from a bat to a human. Yet it did.
I am afraid there's an awful lot of complacency around.
Correct, but there's also a lot of unfounded fear around. Almost all mutations are extremely detrimental to the organism. What is happening now is unusual and the strong chance is that it won't become the kind of thing you seem to fear. But yes, it's possible. And government needs to be ready just in case. Planning for the worst is an essential activity, but not one that we plebs need to sit and wring our hands over all day.
That is a load of straw man arguments lumped together.
Vaccination hesitancy stems from the government.
Why would we need restrictions if vaccines are so effective? Why do people need to be careful?
If someone was selling you a car, and they said at the same time you needed insurance against it breaking down after a year, wouldn't you think twice about buying the thing in the first place?
Car manufacturers make a lot of money on warranties, and we still need restrictions because not everyone is vaccinated yet.
Tell that to the poor folk in Gibraltar. 100% vaccination. Lockdown for Christmas.
If 100% vaccination truly did mean freedom, I'm sure all but the most nutty refusiks would fall into line. Is the government even promising that? or committing to it? Nope/
They rule nothing out, as ever. And that means restrictions could be brought in post 100% vaccination.
I thought that Gibraltar story had been thoroughly debunked as complete nonsense?
"Today I am therefore relieved to be able to tell you that I am announcing no further restrictions at all. There is today no requirement to restrict your civil liberties in order to protect life or the GHA’s ability to protect life."
If you actually read that speech in full, you will see the guy says we are not imposing new restrictions, because we never actually repealed the old ones....
OK, how about you show us evidence that there were actually restrictions.
He says they cancelled some big public events and maintained mask-wearing on buses and in shops.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
Excellent to be in that position , certainly not worth having cash in the bank at present. Assume the children bought them to be tax efficient.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
That is a load of straw man arguments lumped together.
Vaccination hesitancy stems from the government.
Why would we need restrictions if vaccines are so effective? Why do people need to be careful?
If someone was selling you a car, and they said at the same time you needed insurance against it breaking down after a year, wouldn't you think twice about buying the thing in the first place?
Car manufacturers make a lot of money on warranties, and we still need restrictions because not everyone is vaccinated yet.
Tell that to the poor folk in Gibraltar. 100% vaccination. Lockdown for Christmas.
If 100% vaccination truly did mean freedom, I'm sure all but the most nutty refusiks would fall into line. Is the government even promising that? or committing to it? Nope/
They rule nothing out, as ever. And that means restrictions could be brought in post 100% vaccination.
I thought that Gibraltar story had been thoroughly debunked as complete nonsense?
"Today I am therefore relieved to be able to tell you that I am announcing no further restrictions at all. There is today no requirement to restrict your civil liberties in order to protect life or the GHA’s ability to protect life."
If you actually read that speech in full, you will see the guy says we are not imposing new restrictions, because we never actually repealed the old ones....
OK, how about you show us evidence that there were actually restrictions.
He says they cancelled some big public events and maintained mask-wearing on buses and in shops.
And vaccinated 130% of the population.
The claim was "Lockdown for Christmas".
The Gibraltar government never scheduled any big Christmas events this year (fireworks etc). So there was nothing to cancel.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
Isn't DNA mutation related to quantum tunnelling of protons between base pairs? I don't see how that can be deterministic.
Omicron is less dangerous than Delta but this seems to be a total coincidence, it didn't mutate from Delta.
It could have easily mutated into Delta?
CHB, you don't understand natural selection. Omicron may very possibly mutate but whatever it mutates to it won't be Delta. It will be a new entity. Natural selection doesn't go backwards.
It could mutate into something more dangerous than Delta, it doesn't have to mutate to be less
Yes of course it could. But could is doing the heavy lifting. @moonshine’s alien could announce themselves tomorrow by destroying Hull (and receive the grateful thanks of the nation...). I could win the lottery on Saturday. There are a limited number of viable mutations for an organism to take, in order for it to still be able to carry on. Omicron has gained greater transmission at the expense of reduced ACE2 binding. This is just an example that being a virus is not like being a character in a computer game, where you can obtain weapons and shields and get more and more powerful. The outcompete omicron the variant will have to find a way to spread even better. That’s tough to do. Not impossible, but tough.
It is striking how in some minds covid has to be all doom and gloom, though not by so many
That’s a good piece, and a fair summary of the last few years of media screwups - but he’s no Charlie Brooker or Andrew Shulz at end-of-the-year videos, or even John Oliver or Bill Maher who do the same every week.
I am a fan of Triggernomety, but it would have been better if he’d finished the video, with its clickbait title, by saying that vaccines are still good, so go and get them!
I don't believe he or his co-host are vaccinated....I have heard them several times saying they want to go to the US, but it doesn't appear they can because of vaccine mandates.
Yes, I heard the same, which makes it the sort of video YouTube will delete for misinformation in the title, even though everything he said in the video was provably true. It’s clearly already demonetised, becuase there were no ads around it.
Joe Rogan is the same, he’s cancelling gigs because of vaccine mandates in the US and Canada, and his massive podcast audience gets to hear his conspiratorial nonesense on a daily basis.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
It is definitely random. You can model it in supercomputers, but tiny random variations to the input make the difference to it happening or not, and those random inputs ultimately stem from genuinely, truly, profoundly random subatomic events.
Omicron is less dangerous than Delta but this seems to be a total coincidence, it didn't mutate from Delta.
It could have easily mutated into Delta?
CHB, you don't understand natural selection. Omicron may very possibly mutate but whatever it mutates to it won't be Delta. It will be a new entity. Natural selection doesn't go backwards.
It could mutate into something more dangerous than Delta, it doesn't have to mutate to be less
Could it?
Yes. There is nothing to say a mutation can't be more deadly. Only if a mutation kills off its host rapidly so as to prevent spread will it likely not become a dominant strain. An obvious example of a more deadly mutation is Spanish Flu.
Sorry I badly worded that. There is obviously lots of other reasons why a more deadly mutation may not become a dominant strain as well (as with all mutations). Killing off the host quickly is just an additional problem for it.
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Well we're all rooting for you and your family, you deserve some good fortune.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
I am sorry, my mind just will not be changed, I just think if the cases remain high, there's a high chance of mutation. I am just bemused why nobody seems concerned.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
Nope. Doesn't have to be more transmissible, provided it is not around contemporaneously.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
Isn't DNA mutation related to quantum tunnelling of protons between base pairs? I don't see how that can be deterministic.
Or simply there is an error in which base is picked up and incorporated during reading of the original single strand molecule. Don't even need a tunnel for that.
I imagine some error sequences are slightly more likely than others, but I forget the details now.
There is some redundancy in the code because IIRC the third of the base for each triple sequence coding for an amino acid is often flexible, so a mutation here doesn't make any difference. Conversely a mutation in a gene controlling protein expression or development can make a hell of a lot of difference.
Omicron is less dangerous than Delta but this seems to be a total coincidence, it didn't mutate from Delta.
It could have easily mutated into Delta?
CHB, you don't understand natural selection. Omicron may very possibly mutate but whatever it mutates to it won't be Delta. It will be a new entity. Natural selection doesn't go backwards.
It could mutate into something more dangerous than Delta, it doesn't have to mutate to be less
Yes of course it could. But could is doing the heavy lifting. @moonshine’s alien could announce themselves tomorrow by destroying Hull (and receive the grateful thanks of the nation...). I could win the lottery on Saturday. There are a limited number of viable mutations for an organism to take, in order for it to still be able to carry on. Omicron has gained greater transmission at the expense of reduced ACE2 binding. This is just an example that being a virus is not like being a character in a computer game, where you can obtain weapons and shields and get more and more powerful. The outcompete omicron the variant will have to find a way to spread even better. That’s tough to do. Not impossible, but tough.
It is striking how in some minds covid has to be all doom and gloom, though not by so many
I think you might have written that just before you woke up.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
So why couldn't this strain - which as far as I am aware still exists - mutate into something else which outcompetes Omicron?
People are saying it's not possible but it's already happened?
People are NOT saying it’s impossible though are they. We are saying it’s unlikely and trying to explain why. You seem fixated on it being possible, which is true, but it’s unlikely to be both more transmissible AND more severe again.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
I don't know different. What I am saying is that the term "random" is a declaration of our ignorance. Probabilities are subjective, not objective (I'm with de Finetti and Goode on this). Saying that some features in the the world are "random" is just an admission that we do not know what causes them. In other words it is a statement about ourselves, not about the external world.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
So why couldn't this strain - which as far as I am aware still exists - mutate into something else which outcompetes Omicron?
People are saying it's not possible but it's already happened?
People are NOT saying it’s impossible though are they. We are saying it’s unlikely and trying to explain why. You seem fixated on it being possible, which is true, but it’s unlikely to be both more transmissible AND more severe again.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Hi Malc - so sorry to hear this and may your family recover soon
You have had a difficult year and I just want to wish you and your family a much improved 2022
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
Excellent to be in that position , certainly not worth having cash in the bank at present. Assume the children bought them to be tax efficient.
Not yet, they are 11 and 8. Ultimately the pandemic has focussed my mind.
My kids only have four blood relatives, me, my parents, and my ex wife who isn't on the scene.
My parents are in their sixties, I've got a few health conditions, and I just want to make sure my kids have the financial security my parents provided to me growing up and then some.
I was one of the lucky ones, I had my university fees paid for by the government and my parents and grandparents got me onto the property ladder when I was 21, which set me up for life.
I'm not keen with my kids finishing university with close to £100,000 worth of debt and no chance of getting on the property ladder even if they do good degrees and have excellent career prospects.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
So why couldn't this strain - which as far as I am aware still exists - mutate into something else which outcompetes Omicron?
People are saying it's not possible but it's already happened?
People are NOT saying it’s impossible though are they. We are saying it’s unlikely and trying to explain why. You seem fixated on it being possible, which is true, but it’s unlikely to be both more transmissible AND more severe again.
If it is possible - even slightly - then it provides new reasoning for people who favour state interventions generally to argue in that direction. I think this is what is going on here.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
Nope. Doesn't have to be more transmissible, provided it is not around contemporaneously.
I don't think Covid is going anywhere unfortunately!
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
Isn't DNA mutation related to quantum tunnelling of protons between base pairs? I don't see how that can be deterministic.
Or simply there is an error in which base is picked up and incorporated during reading of the original single strand molecule. Don't even need a tunnel for that.
I imagine some error sequences are slightly more likely than others, but I forget the details now.
There is some redundancy in the code because IIRC the third of the base for each triple sequence coding for an amino acid is often flexible, so a mutation here doesn't make any difference. Conversely a mutation in a gene controlling protein expression or development can make a hell of a lot of difference.
Isn't COVID an RNA virus - which makes it much more replication-error prone?
IIRC It is thought that it was evolution of DNA based organisms which made replication stable enough for complex lifeforms to have arrisen.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
So why couldn't this strain - which as far as I am aware still exists - mutate into something else which outcompetes Omicron?
People are saying it's not possible but it's already happened?
No one is saying it isn't possible, you keep insisting that's what people are saying yet I've not read a single post saying it isn't possible.
What people are saying, and frankly getting fed up of repeating at this point, is that in order for a new variant to outcompete Omicron it will need to evade Omicron's conferred immunity in addition to our pre-existing vaccine/Delta immunity. The only way to do that will be to further dilute its own ACE-2 binding efficiency in the spike protein (which is where our immunity is derived), which will make it less virulent. Current conditions and the infection mechanism of COVID make a more virulent virus that can outcompete Omicron very unlikely, especially since Omicron confers immunity to Delta.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
Omicron mutated from the SAME strain Delta mutated from.
So why can't another strain come along that has mutated from that original strain as well, people seem to say this is unlikely but it's already happened once. The answer seems to be that this strain out-competes that one but Delta out-competed the original strain here and Omicron was still able to mutate
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
No they aren't all Omicron, not in the world. Cases are going up everywhere, look at China
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Well we're all rooting for you and your family, you deserve some good fortune.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
No they aren't all Omicron, not in the world. Cases are going up everywhere, look at China
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
This is your mistake. That is not how evolutionary trees work. Mankind did not evolve from apes, but from a common ancestor. Omicron and delta did not evolve from the same prior variant, but from different branches of the evolutionary tree, branches that did have a common ancestor at some point.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
No they aren't all Omicron, not in the world. Cases are going up everywhere, look at China
Those aren't Omicron?
There are loads of variants in the world that aren't Omicron. You seem to be under the illusion every other variant has died out, where do you think Omicron came from?
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
Isn't DNA mutation related to quantum tunnelling of protons between base pairs? I don't see how that can be deterministic.
Or simply there is an error in which base is picked up and incorporated during reading of the original single strand molecule. Don't even need a tunnel for that.
I imagine some error sequences are slightly more likely than others, but I forget the details now.
There is some redundancy in the code because IIRC the third of the base for each triple sequence coding for an amino acid is often flexible, so a mutation here doesn't make any difference. Conversely a mutation in a gene controlling protein expression or development can make a hell of a lot of difference.
Isn't COVID an RNA virus - which makes it much more replication-error prone?
IIRC It is thought that it was evolution of DNA based organisms which made replication stable enough for complex lifeforms to have arrisen.
Coronavirus was probably "unlikely" to transfer from a bat to a human. Yet it did.
I am afraid there's an awful lot of complacency around.
Correct, but there's also a lot of unfounded fear around. Almost all mutations are extremely detrimental to the organism. What is happening now is unusual and the strong chance is that it won't become the kind of thing you seem to fear. But yes, it's possible. And government needs to be ready just in case. Planning for the worst is an essential activity, but not one that we plebs need to sit and wring our hands over all day.
I think the best practical response to the fear of malign mutation is a push to vaccinate the world.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
No they aren't all Omicron, not in the world. Cases are going up everywhere, look at China
Those aren't Omicron?
There are loads of variants in the world that aren't Omicron. You seem to be under the illusion every other variant has died out, where do you think Omicron came from?
So the cases in China aren't Omicron? I think it's a reasonable to assume they are. After all, the fraction of Omicron in sequence cases has shot up around the world, not just here and in SA.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Hi Malc - so sorry to hear this and may your family recover soon
You have had a difficult year and I just want to wish you and your family a much improved 2022
Thanks G, has certainly been a tough 2 years for Helen but she is a lot better nowadays, shingles apart.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
This is your mistake. That is not how evolutionary trees work. Mankind did not evolve from apes, but from a common ancestor. Omicron and delta did not evolve from the same prior variant, but from different branches of the evolutionary tree, branches that did have a common ancestor at some point.
It's also not true, Delta is a direct descendant from an Alpha infection, Omicron is thought to be a descendant from Beta which is a derivative of Wuhan COVID.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
Nope. Doesn't have to be more transmissible, provided it is not around contemporaneously.
I don't think Covid is going anywhere unfortunately!
Not the point. Covid doesn't have to go away, omicron does - and it will, precisely because it is so transmissible. Give it 12 months for omicron-acquired immunity to fade out, and variant sigma will then have the field to itself.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
Outcompete is absolutely correct, Omicron has outcompeted Delta the same as Delta did for Alpha and Beta.
Mutations are random, but those which are successful will follow an evolutionary pathway because of pre-existing immunity forcing them down a certain route. A mutation to Omicron that pushes back to look exactly like Delta will be unable to infect anyone because we've all got very good immunity to Delta, for example.
So the evolutionary pressure is to evade immunity, but to do that it will come at a cost of virulence, Omicron is a big step towards that already.
Evolution is a mechanism of survival of the fittest, it's true for animals, bacteria, viruses and other living or near living organisms (viruses aren't "alive" in the same way bacteria are). That creates a pathway based on what the best growth conditions are, for COVID the best growth conditions are to evade immunity and to do that it needs to lose ACE-2 binding efficiency, that loss will make it less virulent.
This is spot on.
No it isn't. I mean, most of it is correct, but omicron has not snaffled any infection opportunities from delta, so has not outcompeted it, any more than I have outcompeted the last but one owner of my house for my house.
No point trying to reason with Ishmael on this point. He/she has gone all HYUFD on us in failing to concede that he/she was simply wrong.
errm
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Isn't the point that for it to be a concern it would have to be simultaneously more virulent and more transmissible? A lot of the discussion here has been about how that combination is unlikely.
But that is literally what happened with Delta.
Yes, but the step to Omicron also changed how the virus attacks the lungs. Given that you are worried about the large numbers of Omicron cases leading to a mutation, you are surely assuming it will mutate from Omicron.
No...I am saying why can it not mutate from the same strain Omicron mutated from
This whole discussion was started because you said you were worried that all the cases would lead to a mutation. All of those cases are Omicron.
No they aren't all Omicron, not in the world. Cases are going up everywhere, look at China
You really think that China isn't grappling with Omicron right now? On what basis?
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th:
That isn't correct. They have incorrectly scraped the data. That's 3 days of data, which we all released at the same time. The subtle clue is in the fact there were 2 days of 0 COVID cases according to their chart.
They reckon the numbers are at least twice the numbr reported. I now know loads of people with Covid. To my knowledge almost none have reported it. Why would you? Just look at the Premier League. The numbers seem horrendous but they're obliged to declare their cases.
Chloe Smith, the Work and Pensions Minister: "we are one country and people are more than free to move around inside our country under the general law."
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Sorry to hear all that. Best of British, as they say
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
Excellent to be in that position , certainly not worth having cash in the bank at present. Assume the children bought them to be tax efficient.
Not yet, they are 11 and 8. Ultimately the pandemic has focussed my mind.
My kids only have four blood relatives, me, my parents, and my ex wife who isn't on the scene.
My parents are in their sixties, I've got a few health conditions, and I just want to make sure my kids have the financial security my parents provided to me growing up and then some.
I was one of the lucky ones, I had my university fees paid for by the government and my parents and grandparents got me onto the property ladder when I was 21, which set me up for life.
I'm not keen with my kids finishing university with close to £100,000 worth of debt and no chance of getting on the property ladder even if they do good degrees and have excellent career prospects.
Pity you could not put them in a trust for them as tax will kill you especially as no interest to offset. I still have my previous property that I am planning to keep for grandchildren and new rules mean anything I cannot offset against interest or repairs gets taxed at higher rate. I would probably be better remortgaging and invest the extra capital nowadays.
Malmesbury - of course there are more admissions with covid. It's total admissions we should be concerned with and how many are being treated for severe covid. The numbers on ventilation in London have gone up but not massively. Time is running out for this variant to bite.
Coronavirus was probably "unlikely" to transfer from a bat to a human. Yet it did.
I am afraid there's an awful lot of complacency around.
Correct, but there's also a lot of unfounded fear around. Almost all mutations are extremely detrimental to the organism. What is happening now is unusual and the strong chance is that it won't become the kind of thing you seem to fear. But yes, it's possible. And government needs to be ready just in case. Planning for the worst is an essential activity, but not one that we plebs need to sit and wring our hands over all day.
I think the best practical response to the fear of malign mutation is a push to vaccinate the world.
Not possible. Massive cohorts would remain unvaccinated, through choice or logistics. Covid is not going anywhere.
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
I don't know different. What I am saying is that the term "random" is a declaration of our ignorance. Probabilities are subjective, not objective (I'm with de Finetti and Goode on this). Saying that some features in the the world are "random" is just an admission that we do not know what causes them. In other words it is a statement about ourselves, not about the external world.
edited
OK but you should be happy with "non-selected" as a substitute for "random," which is the point here, unless you think God or the Omega Point or something is driving the mutations.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I'm not sure this out-compete terminology is accurate, viruses co-exist all the time.
I understood mutations to be totally random
The mechanism behind mutation is random - errors in replication. However only some confer a survival advantage to the organism (more transmissible, pumps out more virus from the infected, drives the host towards risky behaviour*). These are the ones that take hold. Mistakes in copying happen all the time, but usually do not generate viable mutations.
How do you know the "errors in replication are random"? All you are saying is you don't know what causes them.
Well the idea of dna/rna transcription is that sometimes an inappropriate base gets inserted into the rna/dna, which can lead to the wrong residue in the resulting protein. I’m not an expert in why this happens, but I think it is essentially random. Happy to be corrected on this if you know different?
I don't know different. What I am saying is that the term "random" is a declaration of our ignorance. Probabilities are subjective, not objective (I'm with de Finetti and Goode on this). Saying that some features in the the world are "random" is just an admission that we do not know what causes them. In other words it is a statement about ourselves, not about the external world.
edited
But the nature of the genetic code is that it's pretty far removed from the resiulting organism. Obviously it's not totally random in the sense that certain errors will be commoner than others (uptake of the wrong base pair). And imagine what happens if you hit the gene control sequence or the development control genes. So the results of the mutations aren't random in the sense that they have to have some relation to changes to what is there. You're far more likely to develop, say, skin cancer or be unable to smell cyanide or taste phenylthiourea than grow a complete leg on your head. But the original mutations are a long way from the biological effects. Like changing bits at random on a hard disk, actually.
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
Which local area are you an LL in?
Greater Manchester.
At present LL mortgages are offered at about 2.1% for a 10 year fix (with fees) on 60% LTV. But if you are a new LL it will be different.
Watch your tax bill if you go for a mortgage, and make sure to keep the professional advisers handy, and to keep a sufficiently beady eye on your lettings agent and the admin.
I am sorry, my mind just will not be changed, I just think if the cases remain high, there's a high chance of mutation. I am just bemused why nobody seems concerned.
Higher chance of mutation with higher cases, yes, although for me this is a global point more than a UK one. We've seen how borders are irrelevant with this thing. It's a real world shrinker.
I am sorry, my mind just will not be changed, I just think if the cases remain high, there's a high chance of mutation. I am just bemused why nobody seems concerned.
Higher chance of mutation with higher cases, yes, although for me this is a global point more than a UK one. We've seen how borders are irrelevant with this thing. It's a real world shrinker.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Eh? Of course case numbers are relevant
Not in the context of mutations from non-Omicron variants.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Not at all, no.
The virus is endemic globally now. There's probably going to be billions of cases globally in years to come and a variant can spread around the globe.
So in the context of billions of cases globally, what does a few tens or hundreds of thousands of cases daily matter domestically? Its like pissing into the ocean and thinking that will affect the sea level.
The virus is not endemic. Please stop posting this rubbish.
The more you post, the more it shows that you know little.
The virus is endemic.
If you still think we can eradicate this virus globally with a zero Covid strategy, then you're utterly delusional.
You do not know what endemic means. It is by definition not endemic while it is spreading exponentially.
Terminology aside, your point is gibberish. We have had rather successful zero smallpox and zero polio strategies. And in any case, never mind eradication, what do you propose we do if we get a markedly more lethal variant than we have seen so far? Piles of bodies in the street, or lockdown while the wave passes over us? That question is entirely independent of whether it is endemic, and of whether we could/should pursue a zero covid strategy.
COVID would be closer to having a zero Flu strategy. It would be nice....
For some reason I was reminded of a scientist who said that when we have worked out how to cure AIDS, on the way we will have found out how to cure most cancers, and made the common cold extinct.
Nanobots in the bloodstream would probably do that.
Then a sudden urge to buy Microsoft products.
LOL
On a serious note, I think he was largely right. By the time we have the ability to cure AIDS, we will have acquired, on the way, a vast amount of *fine* control over the human immune system.
The Bio-N-tech bods have got an mRNA HIV vaccine heading to Phase I trials, based on the work they did with the Cov-19 vaccine.
That will be something awesome to have come from the pandemic.
Some of the work with MRNA "vaccines" and cancer is equally amazing. Show your immune system the cancer cell, and let it do the hard work of hunting down and eliminating it.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th:
That isn't correct. They have incorrectly scraped the data. That's 3 days of data, which we all released at the same time. The subtle clue is in the fact there were 2 days of 0 COVID cases according to their chart.
They reckon the numbers are at least twice the numbr reported. I now know loads of people with Covid. To my knowledge almost none have reported it. Why would you? Just look at the Premier League. The numbers seem horrendous but they're obliged to declare their cases.
It will be more than twice infections to cases. Not sure I agree wtih HSA 7x multipler of infections to cases. But we were talking about cases not infections. UK hasn't recorded 300k cases for a single day.
There are lots of good reasons to report a positive test.
Chloe Smith, the Work and Pensions Minister: "we are one country and people are more than free to move around inside our country under the general law."
LOL. Top trolling of the SNP.
Usual thick Tory bollox, if she does not understand the make up of the UK it explains why the DWP is such a mess.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Eh? Of course case numbers are relevant
God this is tedious. But our omicron cases would soon disappear to be replaced by this other variant that you’re so worried about.
France expecting to report 200,000+ cases today. The first European country to break that barrier
I thought UK had already broken 300k?
Not for a single day no. Not even close.
We'll find out at 5pm. They haven't counted all the boxing day cases yet.
OWID Dec 27th.
(Hmm. OK - I see it is one of those added-together days when everyone has been at home, like some of the EU country stats after a weekend)
I'm talking specimen date, as we all should.
The Welsh have managed to cock that up too somehow, according to the dashboard. Reported zero cases on Xmas day.
Wales and Scotland are having reporting holidays, as is NI. Differing data holidays for each of them....
I had PCR today and the centre that can do 1200 a day is chocker, you cannot get a test the same day
Hope you and the family are all doing well.
Thanks TSE, seem not bad, daughter is a bit worse off ,as an anti-vaxer , but just like a dose of flu. I am just cold , mild headache , sore throat. Helen has various symptoms but she is prone to anything still and her shingles have not shifted so hard to say if she has it , her LFT was negative.
Sorry to hear all that. Best of British, as they say
Cheers PS: I am not off the singing ginger so not bad for me anyway at this point.
I am personally much more concerned about inflation than I am of the latest COVID variant that will be along at some point.
I'm looking forward to inflation, it means interest rates are going higher, and as a saver, we savers have had it bad for over a decade.
Though higher interest rates will surely do to house prices what stepsons allegedly do to their stepmoms on the internet?
And for all that needs to happen (I'm totes convinced by the house price theory of everything that's wrong with the world), that really would be an extinction level event for any government.
I took a huge gamble earlier on this year.
I became a bona fide landlord, I realised my savings were getting wiped out/weren't giving me the returns I hoped for, so I took some of the savings and bought some houses.
Worked out the rental income will be more than the interest I'd receive from the banks.
Also is my way of getting my kids on the housing market. I decided cash outright purchases because I feared interest rates would rise.
Which local area are you an LL in?
Greater Manchester.
At present LL mortgages are offered at about 2.1% for a 10 year fix (with fees) on 60% LTV. But if you are a new LL it will be different.
Watch your tax bill if you go for a mortgage, and make sure to keep the professional advisers handy, and to keep a sufficiently beady eye on your lettings agent and the admin.
I’m about to give up being a LL, even as an overseas resident with no income in the UK, it’s a royal pain in the arse to stay on top of everything for one small property, when I can take out the equity and buy rather than rent where I’m actually living.
Sadly, I’m not in the position of being able to buy a couple of houses with cash I have lying around in the bank.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Eh? Of course case numbers are relevant
God this is tedious. But our omicron cases would soon disappear to be replaced by this other variant that you’re so worried about.
That's not a good thing if cases are already high and people are in hospital
I reckon more and more people will be realising that you can catch COVID more than once. The Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was one of the first people in the UK to test positive for COVID.
That he’s got it again will be noticed by a lot of people. Cases are here to stay. As long as we’re testing for it, we’ll find it. Short of videos like those in India back in April, COVID will be done by the end of January.
Natural Selection can go backwards though, this isn't true.
It is worth remembering *why* that can happen.
Let's say that the earth got a lot sunnier. This would mean that natural selection would favour people with those with more melanin (i.e. darker skin).
In the event that the earth were then to get a lot darker, then suddenly the evolutionary pressure would abate, and those with lighter coloured eyes (which take in more light) would get the evolutionary advantage.
In the case of Covid, immunological defences (both vaccine and prior infection generated) are such that a virus that evades those will do better, even if that comes with other costs. Take away the immunological defences, and that pressure disappears, and you might go back to Delta.
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
No, but one that evolves from Omicron that is simultaneously more transmissible and more virulent? That's the scenario that is being debated.
I was talking about mutations to COVID. If the virus is around, it can mutate.
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
Nobody at all concerned high cases leads to a mutation that is as bad as Delta? Remember that this strain has mutated from an older strain than Delta did
Perhaps I made an incorrect assumption in thinking high cases referred to the UK. If there's going to be a mutation in the UK, it's going to be from Omicron.
I never said the UK, the cases are going up everywhere! We had just been discussing other countries.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
I honestly doubt you were thinking globally when you made that original statement. Yes, another variant could arise in another country where they don't have Omicron (although I doubt there will be many of those soon), but in that scenario case numbers in the UK would be irrelevant.
Eh? Of course case numbers are relevant
God this is tedious. But our omicron cases would soon disappear to be replaced by this other variant that you’re so worried about.
It is not possible to predict the future of pandemics, but we cannot be hiding behind the curtains in fear of catching something at sometime in the future
Life is for living and while governments have a duty to keep people safe, they also have a duty to respect individual freedoms
I have no idea whether omicron will mutate or another more deadly strain appears, but the evidence is that boosters provide good protection and until that is disproved then we need to live our lives
That is a load of straw man arguments lumped together.
Vaccination hesitancy stems from the government.
Why would we need restrictions if vaccines are so effective? Why do people need to be careful?
If someone was selling you a car, and they said at the same time you needed insurance against it breaking down after a year, wouldn't you think twice about buying the thing in the first place?
Car manufacturers make a lot of money on warranties, and we still need restrictions because not everyone is vaccinated yet.
Tell that to the poor folk in Gibraltar. 100% vaccination. Lockdown for Christmas.
If 100% vaccination truly did mean freedom, I'm sure all but the most nutty refusiks would fall into line. Is the government even promising that? or committing to it? Nope/
They rule nothing out, as ever. And that means restrictions could be brought in post 100% vaccination.
I am sorry, my mind just will not be changed, I just think if the cases remain high, there's a high chance of mutation. I am just bemused why nobody seems concerned.
There are currently four endemic coronaviruses that cause common cold symptoms. At least one of them probably began in the human population as a pandemic with high mortality. Do you advocate restrictions to mitatage the risk that one of these common cold viruses could mutate again?
The Great Reset is catnip for the conspiracy bods. I know two, a clever one and a dim one.
The dim one the other day was forwarding the idea that it is all a Chinese profit-making conspiracy because he has noticed that LFTs and masks are "always" made in China and that's where the pandemic started. He will never ever get vaccinated by the way. You'd have to pin him down.
Coronavirus was probably "unlikely" to transfer from a bat to a human. Yet it did.
I am afraid there's an awful lot of complacency around.
Correct, but there's also a lot of unfounded fear around. Almost all mutations are extremely detrimental to the organism. What is happening now is unusual and the strong chance is that it won't become the kind of thing you seem to fear. But yes, it's possible. And government needs to be ready just in case. Planning for the worst is an essential activity, but not one that we plebs need to sit and wring our hands over all day.
I think the best practical response to the fear of malign mutation is a push to vaccinate the world.
Not possible. Massive cohorts would remain unvaccinated, through choice or logistics. Covid is not going anywhere.
I've previously suggested that vaccine certification will always be of limited value in dealing with the refusal problem, unless it is tied to the right to paid employment.
Reports tonight that the Italians are considering changing their Green Pass scheme (needed to access the workplace,) which currently allows proof of vaccination, recovery or negative test, to remove the negative test element. So we may be about to find out whether outright loss of income is enough to force at least a large percentage of the refusers to give in.
Elsewhere, still waiting for the Northern Irish authorities to finally catch up so we can get this evening's Covid update.
Coronavirus was probably "unlikely" to transfer from a bat to a human. Yet it did.
I am afraid there's an awful lot of complacency around.
Correct, but there's also a lot of unfounded fear around. Almost all mutations are extremely detrimental to the organism. What is happening now is unusual and the strong chance is that it won't become the kind of thing you seem to fear. But yes, it's possible. And government needs to be ready just in case. Planning for the worst is an essential activity, but not one that we plebs need to sit and wring our hands over all day.
I think the best practical response to the fear of malign mutation is a push to vaccinate the world.
Not possible. Massive cohorts would remain unvaccinated, through choice or logistics. Covid is not going anywhere.
It's totally possible in the same sense as here - that everyone who wishes to be vaccinated is vaccinated. And with the same target end state - Covid lives forever but the pandemic emergency aspect of it ends. Not just here but everywhere. If we don't swiftly get the world protected to the same level as we are - or at least ballpark - it prolongs the global pandemic and it also increases the chances of unlikely and unpleasant virus happenings eg mutations which surprise on the downside.
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And vaccinated 130% of the population.
Read David Quammen's excellent book: "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic". Written in 2012.
Ahem.
If I may clarify my position, m'lud, the point I was meaning to make was that omicron was not outcompeting *the original version of covid.* It is of course outcompeting delta, and I deeply regret any inadvertent suggestion to the contrary in my recent posting. The fallacy I was attacking (and it does need attacking) was: omicron is unoutcompetable, and mild, so we are golden, cos it protects us from any new and more virulent strain. It doesn't, because new and more virulent strain can wait for omicron to come and go and be consigned to the dustbin of history, and then hit us in 18 months time. Which is the point of the house analogy.
Joe Rogan is the same, he’s cancelling gigs because of vaccine mandates in the US and Canada, and his massive podcast audience gets to hear his conspiratorial nonesense on a daily basis.
We have a strain that has mutated into Omicron. This same strain mutated into Delta.
So why couldn't this strain - which as far as I am aware still exists - mutate into something else which outcompetes Omicron?
People are saying it's not possible but it's already happened?
I imagine some error sequences are slightly more likely than others, but I forget the details now.
There is some redundancy in the code because IIRC the third of the base for each triple sequence coding for an amino acid is often flexible, so a mutation here doesn't make any difference. Conversely a mutation in a gene controlling protein expression or development can make a hell of a lot of difference.
edited
You have had a difficult year and I just want to wish you and your family a much improved 2022
My kids only have four blood relatives, me, my parents, and my ex wife who isn't on the scene.
My parents are in their sixties, I've got a few health conditions, and I just want to make sure my kids have the financial security my parents provided to me growing up and then some.
I was one of the lucky ones, I had my university fees paid for by the government and my parents and grandparents got me onto the property ladder when I was 21, which set me up for life.
I'm not keen with my kids finishing university with close to £100,000 worth of debt and no chance of getting on the property ladder even if they do good degrees and have excellent career prospects.
IIRC It is thought that it was evolution of DNA based organisms which made replication stable enough for complex lifeforms to have arrisen.
What people are saying, and frankly getting fed up of repeating at this point, is that in order for a new variant to outcompete Omicron it will need to evade Omicron's conferred immunity in addition to our pre-existing vaccine/Delta immunity. The only way to do that will be to further dilute its own ACE-2 binding efficiency in the spike protein (which is where our immunity is derived), which will make it less virulent. Current conditions and the infection mechanism of COVID make a more virulent virus that can outcompete Omicron very unlikely, especially since Omicron confers immunity to Delta.
Omicron mutated from the SAME strain Delta mutated from.
So why can't another strain come along that has mutated from that original strain as well, people seem to say this is unlikely but it's already happened once. The answer seems to be that this strain out-competes that one but Delta out-competed the original strain here and Omicron was still able to mutate
Omicron clearly did not develop out of one of the earlier variants of concern, such as Alpha or Delta. Instead, it appears to have evolved in parallel—and in the dark. Omicron is so different from the millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that have been shared publicly that pinpointing its closest relative is difficult, says Emma Hodcroft, a virologist at the University of Bern. It likely diverged early from other strains, she says. “I would say it goes back to mid-2020.”
Thus is my point, there is nothing to stop another variant from appearing
My point is that not every case in the world is Omicron.
LOL. Top trolling of the SNP.
My point is that unless every case of COVID in the world is Omicron, another variant that isn't Omicron could in fact already exist. Which is what they think happened with this one.
I simply think the complacency is off the scale with this one
Watch your tax bill if you go for a mortgage, and make sure to keep the professional advisers handy, and to keep a sufficiently beady eye on your lettings agent and the admin.
The co-applicants list is also a great example of how previously senior & respected people can also lose their grip on what's real.
https://twitter.com/N_Waters89/status/1476162839626797062
There are lots of good reasons to report a positive test.
John O'Loony - Funeral Director & Activist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-57532368
PS: I am not off the singing ginger so not bad for me anyway at this point.
Sadly, I’m not in the position of being able to buy a couple of houses with cash I have lying around in the bank.
That he’s got it again will be noticed by a lot of people. Cases are here to stay. As long as we’re testing for it, we’ll find it. Short of videos like those in India back in April, COVID will be done by the end of January.
Let's say that the earth got a lot sunnier. This would mean that natural selection would favour people with those with more melanin (i.e. darker skin).
In the event that the earth were then to get a lot darker, then suddenly the evolutionary pressure would abate, and those with lighter coloured eyes (which take in more light) would get the evolutionary advantage.
In the case of Covid, immunological defences (both vaccine and prior infection generated) are such that a virus that evades those will do better, even if that comes with other costs. Take away the immunological defences, and that pressure disappears, and you might go back to Delta.
*However*, I don't think this is very likely.
Life is for living and while governments have a duty to keep people safe, they also have a duty to respect individual freedoms
I have no idea whether omicron will mutate or another more deadly strain appears, but the evidence is that boosters provide good protection and until that is disproved then we need to live our lives
Are you lying again?
https://www.gibraltar.gov.gi/press-releases/chief-ministers-script-live-statement-from-no-6-convent-place-9552021-7552
There is no lockdown in Gibraltar.
What, you don't think we know how to use Google?
The funeral director is a great addition even before you see his "surname".
@Endillion I think it's a supply and demand thing. You can't charge £3000 a time when you are burying 500+ people a time in the same mass grave.
The dim one the other day was forwarding the idea that it is all a Chinese profit-making conspiracy because he has noticed that LFTs and masks are "always" made in China and that's where the pandemic started. He will never ever get vaccinated by the way. You'd have to pin him down.
What makes even Piers Corbyn think the International Cricket Council can do anything?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012tzd/royal-institution-christmas-lectures-2021-1-the-invisible-enemy
Reports tonight that the Italians are considering changing their Green Pass scheme (needed to access the workplace,) which currently allows proof of vaccination, recovery or negative test, to remove the negative test element. So we may be about to find out whether outright loss of income is enough to force at least a large percentage of the refusers to give in.
Elsewhere, still waiting for the Northern Irish authorities to finally catch up so we can get this evening's Covid update.