Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
Had a very bad cold/flu just before Christmas 2019 but have no idea whether it was The Virus or not. Otherwise, haven't had it.
Before your vaccinations you could have had an antibody test to see if you’d had it, but that is no longer an option.
I don't think that's strictly true unless you've had a vaccine based off the whole virus. People who have had the virus have a broader range of antigens than strictly immunised individuals.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
Doubt I'm considered a regular, but covid free afaik..
Ditto here. Nearest it's got to us (or my immediate family) is our neighbour, who got it just in time for Christmas.
I do wonder if there's some genetic aspects to avoiding it, as my sister and brother in particular have jobs and hobbies where it is hard to avoid contact with others. Or perhaps it's just luck with a small sample size ...
Edit: and also, by saying this, I'm tempting fate...
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
iirc one of the science experts on SAGE said this morning that even a tiny whiff of someone's breath who has it will pass it on in many cases.
So - presumably that means even a quick dash to food shop gives you a very good chance of getting it.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
iirc one of the science experts on SAGE said this morning that even a tiny whiff of someone's breath who has it will pass it on in many cases.
So - presumably that means even a quick dash to food shop gives you a very good chance of getting it.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
No matter. Table service in pubs and banning parkrun will deal with it.
And early closing time.....
I thought the Quebec one being 10pm was particularly funny on the "we are doing something that won't make a blind bit of difference" scale.
Wasn’t the 10pm pub closing thing tried for about a week in England, with the predictable result that you end up with thousands of people all milling around drunk on the street at the same time, therefore making the problem worse?
Yes and getting on public transport all at the same time drunk.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
iirc one of the science experts on SAGE said this morning that even a tiny whiff of someone's breath who has it will pass it on in many cases.
So - presumably that means even a quick dash to food shop gives you a very good chance of getting it.
I haven't knowingly had the pestilence. But then, my immune system is blisteringly good (compensated for by a back that randomly decides it wants to impersonate an 80 year old man, a circulatory system that doesn't work, and perennial insomnia).
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
Had a very bad cold/flu just before Christmas 2019 but have no idea whether it was The Virus or not. Otherwise, haven't had it.
Before your vaccinations you could have had an antibody test to see if you’d had it, but that is no longer an option.
I don't think that's strictly true unless you've had a vaccine based off the whole virus. People who have had the virus have a broader range of antigens than strictly immunised individuals.
The test was for antibodies to the viral nucleocapsid protein. Which are abundant in those who’ve been infected, and not present for those who’ve not been infected, but vaccinated with the vaccines we’ve used in the UK. (You’re probably correct about inactivated virus vaccines.)
Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer see Scottish approval ratings 'hit record lows'
VOTERS’ estimations of the UK and Scottish leaders of both the Tory and Labour parties have sunk to record lows, Professor Sir John Curtice [the president of the British Polling Council] has said.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s rating has plummeted to a rating of -1, while his UK leader, Keir Starmer, has also seen a drop in his approval rating, which now sits on -35.
The news is equally poor for the Tory leaders, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson having an approval rating of -62. A massive 78% of people said Johnson was doing his job poorly.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has also seen a drop in his rating, which now sits on -38. Just 17% of Scots said he was doing well in his role.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish LibDems, has an approval rating of -16. However, the majority of respondents (55%) said they did not know how he was performing.
[Curtice] adds: “There is no sign of any electoral challenge to the grip of the nationalist movement on the Holyrood chamber. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are mired in sleaze, and the UK and Scottish leaders of the Conservative and the Labour Party have all sunk to record lows in voters’ estimation.”
And Scotland is now almost irrelevant in relation to UK General Elections.
In that case we may as well just call them England & Wales General Elections, or my preference, Wangland GEs.
At some point Scottish voters will decide they want influence over Westminster politics
Yeah, a rather abrupt influence.
It’s on the assumption that there is a Labour minority government that will trade with them for support. How many have there been in the last century? 1? (Vague memory of something in the 70s)
In return they have no meaningful input on foreign affairs, defence, tax policy etc.
It may be they are content with effective control of the main public facing aspects of domestic policy however
It'll be interesting to see whether the Scottish MPs can have any meaningful influence even if they do hold the balance of power in theory. In practice the SNPs positioning is such that English Labour will probably feel that they can write it off. They can't do anything to damage a minority Labour administration that doesn't help the hated Tories.
I think discussions of the SNP in such a situation are completely secondary to the crucial point that there would be a huge crisis solely in England right from the start if the Tories still had a majority of English seats; they would be screaming at the illegitimacy of Labour deciding on English domestic issues. That's (so to speak) independent of what happens in Scotland (and Wales and NI for that matter).
Of course, that would be the Tories' fault for not setting up an English parliament in the years since Mr Blair's administration.
Their abolition of EVEL remains a huge anomaly unless it is a trap to try and get the SNP to fall into.
I wouldn't like to predict how a hung parliament will play out under those circumstances. Quite apart from anything else, if the SNP members stick to their self-denying ordinance on legislation not applicable to Scotland then you could easily find a Labour minority unable to get much of its legislation past a Tory majority on a whole range of policy. It's a right old pantomime just waiting to happen, and Labour itself committed the original sin by failing to think through the consequences of asymmetric devolution. The birds continue to come home to roost.
Worth bearing in mind that the confidence intervals in England are much narrower than the other parts of the UK - while "1 in 25" is pretty much bang on (range 24-26) , Wales, Scotland and NI could be as high as 1 in 34,35 and 32 respectively, or as "low" (sic) as 47,46,50
Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer see Scottish approval ratings 'hit record lows'
VOTERS’ estimations of the UK and Scottish leaders of both the Tory and Labour parties have sunk to record lows, Professor Sir John Curtice [the president of the British Polling Council] has said.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s rating has plummeted to a rating of -1, while his UK leader, Keir Starmer, has also seen a drop in his approval rating, which now sits on -35.
The news is equally poor for the Tory leaders, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson having an approval rating of -62. A massive 78% of people said Johnson was doing his job poorly.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has also seen a drop in his rating, which now sits on -38. Just 17% of Scots said he was doing well in his role.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish LibDems, has an approval rating of -16. However, the majority of respondents (55%) said they did not know how he was performing.
[Curtice] adds: “There is no sign of any electoral challenge to the grip of the nationalist movement on the Holyrood chamber. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are mired in sleaze, and the UK and Scottish leaders of the Conservative and the Labour Party have all sunk to record lows in voters’ estimation.”
And Scotland is now almost irrelevant in relation to UK General Elections.
In that case we may as well just call them England & Wales General Elections, or my preference, Wangland GEs.
At some point Scottish voters will decide they want influence over Westminster politics
Yeah, a rather abrupt influence.
It’s on the assumption that there is a Labour minority government that will trade with them for support. How many have there been in the last century? 1? (Vague memory of something in the 70s)
In return they have no meaningful input on foreign affairs, defence, tax policy etc.
It may be they are content with effective control of the main public facing aspects of domestic policy however
It'll be interesting to see whether the Scottish MPs can have any meaningful influence even if they do hold the balance of power in theory. In practice the SNPs positioning is such that English Labour will probably feel that they can write it off. They can't do anything to damage a minority Labour administration that doesn't help the hated Tories.
I think discussions of the SNP in such a situation are completely secondary to the crucial point that there would be a huge crisis solely in England right from the start if the Tories still had a majority of English seats; they would be screaming at the illegitimacy of Labour deciding on English domestic issues. That's (so to speak) independent of what happens in Scotland (and Wales and NI for that matter).
Of course, that would be the Tories' fault for not setting up an English parliament in the years since Mr Blair's administration.
Their abolition of EVEL remains a huge anomaly unless it is a trap to try and get the SNP to fall into.
The other thing this old chestnut ignores is that while the implication is that the nasty Nats will derail a lovely, progressive Labour manifesto of sugar and spice and all things nice, much more likely is that the SNP would refuse to support one of the regular spasms of tough on the causes of X that Labour feels it has to indulge in to placate a section of English voters.
'Bloody Nats obstructing our Brexity this and hammer dole scroungers that, Scottish voters are bound to flock back to Labour!'
A #COVID19 antiviral made by @Pfizer has been approved for use across the UK by @MHRAgovuk
There’s one company having a good pandemic.
Not only the first vaccine to market, but also the vaccine of choice for most of the Western world, and now an antiviral drug to treat those who do get it badly.
For every bunch of Sacklers giving the industry a bad name, there’s also a bunch of geniuses working to make the world in 2022 a better place.
A #COVID19 antiviral made by @Pfizer has been approved for use across the UK by @MHRAgovuk
There’s one company having a good pandemic.
Not only the first vaccine to market, but also the vaccine of choice for most of the Western world, and now an antiviral drug to treat those who do get it badly.
For every bunch of Sacklers giving the industry a bad name, there’s also a bunch of geniuses working to make the world in 2022 a better place.
Jezza Corbyn spitting feathers at such a claim. Of course he wanted to just nationalise drug production.
On the plus side England must surely be at or very near peak, possibly even past it.
No, I think there's going to be a lot of cases this week and next week. Still at 2.2m infected people in England that's resulted in ~7k people in hospital for COVID in England and a lot of that 7k will be Delta holdovers. The number in hospital for Omicron will be lower and the vast majority of that 2.2m is Omicron.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
"The New York Times @nytimes Breaking News: South Africa said health data suggested its Omicron peak had passed with no major spike in deaths, offering cautious hope to other countries."
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
The ONS survey relies on random testing of a representative cross section of the population so should be reasonably accurate. Either your social circle is atypical or (more likely) there are an awful lot of undetected cases. Both outright asymptomatic and minor illnesses that people aren't testing over.
As reported yesterday, the Zoe app doctor believes that three quarters of common colds in the UK at the moment are actually Covid infections.
Does anyone know how accurate the blood O2 measures are on a phone? And what numbers to look out for?
I've got a Galaxy S9+ and after testing positive yesterday I used the sensor for the first time in years to get a reading of 95. I then immediately tried it again a few times and got an 85, 86 and 88 which rather raises question marks against its reliability. Just tried again and got a 90.
This article says that it is accurate within FDA tolerances to be approved for clinical use, which makes me worry about lax standards at the FDA, but it does have a nice scatter plot comparing readings taken with the S9+ and with a blood gas analyser. Looks like there is the potential for large errors in either direction.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
Not how I'm viewing it. I intend to dodge the thing as long as possible. Viruses evolve to become nicer - Darwin tells us this with his Theory that's more like a fact - so my plan is to catch it in about 2027, by which time the main symptom will be a hankering for chocolate.
I'm surprised they can organise this at such short notice.....
Sounds like they were lying in saying it was cancelled and were doing so to keep it under wraps so no crowds came. Doesn't sound at all like its being organised at short notice.
So still spending the money to put it on, but having wrecked any opportunity for businesses to maximise sales over it, or people to make plans. Go Khan!
New data: one third of Covid hospital cases thought to be incidental, apparently.
It's actually probably quite a bit higher than that for Omicron. If we use just the incremental rate since Omicron became dominant its just under half being incidental.
48% (lol) of incremental admissions in London in the last week have been incidental or "with COVID" rather than "for COVID". This is why NHS trust managers aren't worried by the numbers we see on the public dashboard. The proportion usually hovers around 65-70% for COVID.
The only major worry is the rate of increase in hospital numbers for COVID but part of that is due to the funnel not having Omicron patients leaving yet, we'll have to wait until the second week of January to really know what the entry vs exit stats look like for the hospitalisation funnel. It could be that it levels out quite a bit lower than it did for Alpha or Delta because of reduced severity.
Based on the trend of incoming patients in England it looks like the "for COVID" number in hospital is about 7k. Unfortunately we can't compare that 7k figure to the Alpha wave because this statistic wasn't produced until the Saj became health sec so the data doesn't exist before June 18th.
The one stat from SA that is not completely joyous is that in Gauteng the number of Covid patients _in_ hospital is still rising despite admissions falling, including ICU patients.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
Not how I'm viewing it. I intend to dodge the thing as long as possible. Viruses evolve to become nicer - Darwin tells us this with his Theory that's more like a fact - so my plan is to catch it in about 2027, by which time the main symptom will be a hankering for chocolate.
A valid point, only the measures that you need to take to avoid it become ever more extreme whilst you're waiting for the Lindt variant to rock up. Are you planning on living in a remote cottage in the Hebrides and having no visitors for the next five years?
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
I'm surprised they can organise this at such short notice.....
Presumably they were trying to do it on the quiet, to get the London fireworks on the world news feeds but not have millions of people turn up to watch. They can’t hide the fact that they’ve now got people abseiling the Eye and vans full of explosives being unloaded onto barges on the Thames.
The London hospitality industry will be less than complementary about the Mayor, for completely ruining one of their busiest nights in two years.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I disagree, I think it was absolutely worthwhile saving c.350,000 UK lives.
But the inquiry should consider what level of death is not worth worrying about.
48% (lol) of incremental admissions in London in the last week have been incidental or "with COVID" rather than "for COVID". This is why NHS trust managers aren't worried by the numbers we see on the public dashboard. The proportion usually hovers around 65-70% for COVID.
The only major worry is the rate of increase in hospital numbers for COVID but part of that is due to the funnel not having Omicron patients leaving yet, we'll have to wait until the second week of January to really know what the entry vs exit stats look like for the hospitalisation funnel. It could be that it levels out quite a bit lower than it did for Alpha or Delta because of reduced severity.
Based on the trend of incoming patients in England it looks like the "for COVID" number in hospital is about 7k. Unfortunately we can't compare that 7k figure to the Alpha wave because this statistic wasn't produced until the Saj became health sec so the data doesn't exist before June 18th.
The one stat from SA that is not completely joyous is that in Gauteng the number of Covid patients _in_ hospital is still rising despite admissions falling, including ICU patients.
Yes, it looks like there's some element of those who do get severely ill still take a while to get better which means the funnel still currently has more going in than coming out. The really key stat for the UK will be at what level our funnel equalises for Omicron. For Delta it was about 4k in hospital for COVID for months, for Omicron it could be as high as 12-15k for COVID (based on London) but for a much shorter period of time.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I am far from convinced a disease as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as the original variant would have been 1% fatality. Bear in mind health systems would simply have imploded under the pressure so even quite minor infections, coughs etc might easily have been fatal. And it would certainly have gone charging through sub-Saharan Africa and not in a good way.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
None here yet. Shielding wife has meant extreme caution. Daughter probably narrowly avoided Covid pre christmas hols by having a non-Covid cough keep her off school for a few days when a bunch of class mates got Covid.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
I am not sure that any of us really know. My son's partner produced a vaguely positive LFT last Wednesday, which led to them eventually getting positive PCR results (this Tuesday). She produced negative results on Thursday and Friday but Saturday's test also came up positive. My son's tests have been negative on a daily basis.
Emboldened by this negativity, my son dropped our presents off on Saturday, and despite a masked, and most fleeting encounter with my line manager wife alongside an open external door, he managed to infect her. So I am now living with Covid, but my daily LFTs continue to show negative.
Big O really is highly infectious. I don't see how we all avoid getting infected over the next few months.
Probably best to get it over and done with if you are reasonably fit.
Not how I'm viewing it. I intend to dodge the thing as long as possible. Viruses evolve to become nicer - Darwin tells us this with his Theory that's more like a fact - so my plan is to catch it in about 2027, by which time the main symptom will be a hankering for chocolate.
A valid point, only the measures that you need to take to avoid it become ever more extreme whilst you're waiting for the Lindt variant to rock up. Are you planning on living in a remote cottage in the Hebrides and having no visitors for the next five years?
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
1% would not have died at this level of infectivity and no lockdown, it would have been many more. At this level of infectivity the health system would have collapsed.
Scores of Nurses, doctors and hospital staff would be dead. Non-Covid patients would be totally without care rather than just delayed care. Shielders would have had no chance to shield and would be brutally effected.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I am far from convinced a disease as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as the original variant would have been 1% fatality. Bear in mind health systems would simply have imploded under the pressure so even quite minor infections, coughs etc might easily have been fatal. And it would certainly have gone charging through sub-Saharan Africa and not in a good way.
Yes it would have burnt through very quickly and lots of people would have died, but then it would have been over almost as soon as it began. Close to a million die of natural causes anyway in a two year period and aren't getting that time they've lost back. There wouldn't be expanded waiting lists for years to come for cancer, hips, dental and all the other postponements. There wouldn't have been years of disrupted education. There wouldn't have been trillions spent.
There'd need to be surge money spent on funeral homes for a few weeks, but the rest of society I suspect would have been better off if it had just ripped out of control immediately. Cynical but true.
48% (lol) of incremental admissions in London in the last week have been incidental or "with COVID" rather than "for COVID". This is why NHS trust managers aren't worried by the numbers we see on the public dashboard. The proportion usually hovers around 65-70% for COVID.
The only major worry is the rate of increase in hospital numbers for COVID but part of that is due to the funnel not having Omicron patients leaving yet, we'll have to wait until the second week of January to really know what the entry vs exit stats look like for the hospitalisation funnel. It could be that it levels out quite a bit lower than it did for Alpha or Delta because of reduced severity.
Based on the trend of incoming patients in England it looks like the "for COVID" number in hospital is about 7k. Unfortunately we can't compare that 7k figure to the Alpha wave because this statistic wasn't produced until the Saj became health sec so the data doesn't exist before June 18th.
The one stat from SA that is not completely joyous is that in Gauteng the number of Covid patients _in_ hospital is still rising despite admissions falling, including ICU patients.
According to the NICD website a week ago there were 3347 covid patients in Gauteng Hospitals and today there are 3160
I'm surprised they can organise this at such short notice.....
Presumably they were trying to do it on the quiet, to get the London fireworks on the world news feeds but not have millions of people turn up to watch. They can’t hide the fact that they’ve now got people abseiling the Eye and vans full of explosives being unloaded onto barges on the Thames.
The London hospitality industry will be less than complementary about the Mayor, for completely ruining one of their busiest nights in two years.
There's no way that a display even a tiny fraction of the usual size could be put on in a few days. This display must have been planned, ordered formally etc months ago.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
What effect do you think it'll have on Welsh and Scotch polling, oh wise one? Will you keep your 100% record on predictions for the political futures of Sturgeon and Drakeford?
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
That is a real mess. The BBC should correct and apologise - or state exactly what they think was said, and why they think it.
I think the BBC needs to do both. You can't put a report like that together without thinking something anti-muslim was said on the bus. What did they divine had been said on the bus ?
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
Given how nasty and commercial the Edinburgh New Year has become, a lot of the locals will be hugely relieved. I wouldn't go anywhere near it evewn before covid, because I was so frightened of the drunken crowds.
The fourth Ashes Test has been thrown into chaos after Australia's Travis Head tested positive for Covid on New Year’s Eve. The Australian batter is the first player from either side to test positive.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
1% would not have died at this level of infectivity and no lockdown, it would have been many more. At this level of infectivity the health system would have collapsed.
Scores of Nurses, doctors and hospital staff would be dead. Non-Covid patients would be totally without care rather than just delayed care. Shielders would have had no chance to shield and would be brutally effected.
We are talking disaster movie level of carnage,
Yes, the first and probably third lockdowns were necessary. Post vaccines they aren't. Today's ONS numbers coupled with the England hospital numbers show why it isn't necessary. Omicron looks, at the moment, very much like a paper tiger in a population with very high rates of immunity (~95% of adults at last count).
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
That is a real mess. The BBC should correct and apologise - or state exactly what they think was said, and why they think it.
I think it is fairly obvious what happened. They got a "translation" from someone who didn't actually speak the language in question. Quite probably someone who was present at the attack.....
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
That is a real mess. The BBC should correct and apologise - or state exactly what they think was said, and why they think it.
I think the BBC needs to do both. You can't put a report like that together without thinking something anti-muslim was said on the bus. What did they divine had been said on the bus ?
Probably looked on twitter and found some no name claiming its means something terrible.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
I've just put the amount I would have spent on my planned meal out tonight backing Yes for a Tory poll lead by end of January.
I think the devolved governments are going to provide vindication for the Tories and the more the press reports on things like empty Edinburgh and empty grounds at Celtic Park etc versus what's happening in England could easily be a trigger for a poll revival.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I am far from convinced a disease as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as the original variant would have been 1% fatality. Bear in mind health systems would simply have imploded under the pressure so even quite minor infections, coughs etc might easily have been fatal. And it would certainly have gone charging through sub-Saharan Africa and not in a good way.
Yes it would have burnt through very quickly and lots of people would have died, but then it would have been over almost as soon as it began. Close to a million die of natural causes anyway in a two year period and aren't getting that time they've lost back. There wouldn't be expanded waiting lists for years to come for cancer, hips, dental and all the other postponements. There wouldn't have been years of disrupted education. There wouldn't have been trillions spent.
There'd need to be surge money spent on funeral homes for a few weeks, but the rest of society I suspect would have been better off if it had just ripped out of control immediately. Cynical but true.
I think it would have been longer than a few weeks. Long Covid aside, at that rate it would have caused major long term damage to the healthcare system that would have been with us for months if not years as we struggled to replace dead doctors and nurses. Which would, in itself, see higher mortality rates.
In any case, if this was as infectious as Omicron and as virulent as the original disease you might easily be looking, even without such issues, at 5% mortality concentrated overwhelmingly among older people. Do you honestly think there would be no repercussions in society and the economy if more people than live in Greater Manchester all died in a short space of time?
We'd be looking at far more than a few busy funeral parlours...
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
That is a real mess. The BBC should correct and apologise - or state exactly what they think was said, and why they think it.
I think it is fairly obvious what happened. They got a "translation" from someone who didn't actually speak the language in question. Quite probably someone who was present at the attack.....
They also attacked really weirdly. They blurred the faces of the attackers, while on the same page published the police screen grab from the video of one of the individuals they were looking for which wasn't the best...and it was much easier to identify from watching the video.
48% (lol) of incremental admissions in London in the last week have been incidental or "with COVID" rather than "for COVID". This is why NHS trust managers aren't worried by the numbers we see on the public dashboard. The proportion usually hovers around 65-70% for COVID.
The only major worry is the rate of increase in hospital numbers for COVID but part of that is due to the funnel not having Omicron patients leaving yet, we'll have to wait until the second week of January to really know what the entry vs exit stats look like for the hospitalisation funnel. It could be that it levels out quite a bit lower than it did for Alpha or Delta because of reduced severity.
Based on the trend of incoming patients in England it looks like the "for COVID" number in hospital is about 7k. Unfortunately we can't compare that 7k figure to the Alpha wave because this statistic wasn't produced until the Saj became health sec so the data doesn't exist before June 18th.
The one stat from SA that is not completely joyous is that in Gauteng the number of Covid patients _in_ hospital is still rising despite admissions falling, including ICU patients.
According to the NICD website a week ago there were 3347 covid patients in Gauteng Hospitals and today there are 3160
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
What effect do you think it'll have on Welsh and Scotch polling, oh wise one? Will you keep you 100% record on predictions for the political futures of Sturgeon and Drakeford?
I have no idea but the Welsh news is interviewing border businesses who are seeing their income disappear to England and are not happy
You can extol the virtues of Sturgeon as much as you like but despite the SNP monopoly, Independence is as far away as ever and she knows it
The fourth Ashes Test has been thrown into chaos after Australia's Travis Head tested positive for Covid on New Year’s Eve. The Australian batter is the first player from either side to test positive.
Aussie forfeit! Save the 5-0 drubbing we so richly deserve.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I disagree, I think it was absolutely worthwhile saving c.350,000 UK lives.
But the inquiry should consider what level of death is not worth worrying about.
A #COVID19 antiviral made by @Pfizer has been approved for use across the UK by @MHRAgovuk
There’s one company having a good pandemic.
Not only the first vaccine to market, but also the vaccine of choice for most of the Western world, and now an antiviral drug to treat those who do get it badly.
For every bunch of Sacklers giving the industry a bad name, there’s also a bunch of geniuses working to make the world in 2022 a better place.
And absolutely cleaning up on the money front from a project derisked by government. IP not shared. Massively unequal vaccine distribution hence prolonging the global pandemic.
I quite like what Astra did though. Bought their shares because of it.
Interesting. But that's the legal new year? Gifts still handed out at what we call New Year?
It would be in Scotland, not in England. The old year until then began with Easter, also Lady Day (now the Feast of the Annunication) on the 25th March.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
What effect do you think it'll have on Welsh and Scotch polling, oh wise one? Will you keep you 100% record on predictions for the political futures of Sturgeon and Drakeford?
I have no idea but the Welsh news is interviewing border businesses who are seeing their income disappear to England and are not happy
You can extol the virtues of Sturgeon as much as you like but despite the SNP monopoly, Independence is as far away as ever and she knows it
I haven't extolled any virtues of Sturgeon, otoh you whine about her 24/7. I am old enough to remember you extolling the virtues of BJ mind.
The fourth Ashes Test has been thrown into chaos after Australia's Travis Head tested positive for Covid on New Year’s Eve. The Australian batter is the first player from either side to test positive.
Aussie forfeit! Save the 5-0 drubbing we so richly deserve.
5-0? 'Drubbing we so richly deserve' would be more like 10-0 given how utterly abject we've been.
4% of all people! And we can track COVID related hospitalisations to it as well. With today's data. The CHR must be absolutely tiny.
Roughly 2m to 10k or 200:1. The death rate used to be higher than that. Go vaccines!
7k in hospital *for* COVID so I'd guess at 1/300.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
But, but what does Nicola do now?
What a ridiculous question David. You think Nicola is bothered by "the science"?
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The contrast to tonight's New Year display in London to a deserted and dour Edinburgh and Cardiff will not be a good look for Sturgeon or Drakeford
Given how nasty and commercial the Edinburgh New Year has become, a lot of the locals will be hugely relieved. I wouldn't go anywhere near it evewn before covid, because I was so frightened of the drunken crowds.
I can understand that but it is still not a good look
It's obviously got harder and harder to defend the PM and his government over this year, even as a loyal Tory, but it hasn't got any more difficult to laugh at some of the most ludicrous attempts to attack him.
I think these are my favourite of the year so far:
- Professor Peston's mirror - Binbaggate - in something of a sequel to last year's Giant Baby story - And if Carrie is pregnant, I’m the Queen of Spades! (there were many, many tweets saying the same around then) - The Johnson Variant; probably deserves a separate category for its odd wind of Keirdness - a brand new entry; nearly 40 years ago Boris knew a girl in the year below at his college whose Dad had been a Labour MP and had a huge party mansion down the road. She turned out bad. So. Well. You know what that means.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I disagree, I think it was absolutely worthwhile saving c.350,000 UK lives.
But the inquiry should consider what level of death is not worth worrying about.
Any level so long as it does not include me?
A valid point. The longer this drags on for and the more jabs are administered, so the percentage of the population that feels safe and bridles against rules to protect other people (especially our friends the refusers) will continue to track upwards. Another important consideration for our leaders when weighing up whether or not to embark on the umpteenth lockdown cycle.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I am far from convinced a disease as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as the original variant would have been 1% fatality. Bear in mind health systems would simply have imploded under the pressure so even quite minor infections, coughs etc might easily have been fatal. And it would certainly have gone charging through sub-Saharan Africa and not in a good way.
Yes it would have burnt through very quickly and lots of people would have died, but then it would have been over almost as soon as it began. Close to a million die of natural causes anyway in a two year period and aren't getting that time they've lost back. There wouldn't be expanded waiting lists for years to come for cancer, hips, dental and all the other postponements. There wouldn't have been years of disrupted education. There wouldn't have been trillions spent.
There'd need to be surge money spent on funeral homes for a few weeks, but the rest of society I suspect would have been better off if it had just ripped out of control immediately. Cynical but true.
The fatality rate was only 1% when hospital care was available. If the hospitals were overwhelmed then the fatality rate would have been closer to 5% - except that, of course, people would have stayed home out of fear, so we would have had a lot of the damage of lockdown, with a higher rate of fatality, and a feeling from the public that their government had abandoned them.
There's many things I would have done differently - I wouldn't have used the law to enforce a lockdown, but made it strong government public health advice, for example - but there was no easy way to avoid the difficulties of the last two years.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
Or its a shame it wasn't this infectious originally because if it was this infectious when we had no idea what it was it would have burnt out in the space of a month or two and then we'd have gotten back to normal instead of spending two years obsessing over Covid.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
Had it been this infectious to begin with, it would have been carnage. Mind you, the world might have shutdown air travel that much faster had 1% of China died in a couple of weeks.
It would have been carnage but we'd have ripped off the bandage much quicker.
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
I am far from convinced a disease as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as the original variant would have been 1% fatality. Bear in mind health systems would simply have imploded under the pressure so even quite minor infections, coughs etc might easily have been fatal. And it would certainly have gone charging through sub-Saharan Africa and not in a good way.
Yes it would have burnt through very quickly and lots of people would have died, but then it would have been over almost as soon as it began. Close to a million die of natural causes anyway in a two year period and aren't getting that time they've lost back. There wouldn't be expanded waiting lists for years to come for cancer, hips, dental and all the other postponements. There wouldn't have been years of disrupted education. There wouldn't have been trillions spent.
There'd need to be surge money spent on funeral homes for a few weeks, but the rest of society I suspect would have been better off if it had just ripped out of control immediately. Cynical but true.
I think it would have been longer than a few weeks. Long Covid aside, at that rate it would have caused major long term damage to the healthcare system that would have been with us for months if not years as we struggled to replace dead doctors and nurses. Which would, in itself, see higher mortality rates.
In any case, if this was as infectious as Omicron and as virulent as the original disease you might easily be looking, even without such issues, at 5% mortality concentrated overwhelmingly among older people. Do you honestly think there would be no repercussions in society and the economy if more people than live in Greater Manchester all died in a short space of time?
We'd be looking at far more than a few busy funeral parlours...
It would have been sad and traumatic, but then the last two years have been sad and traumatic anyway.
However being sad doesn't necessarily make it worse. There have been repercussions that we'll be paying probably for years to come if not the rest of our lives due to the disruptions to education, the amount borrowed, the longer waiting lists etc
Being utterly cynical if it had ripped through then that would have been awful for the elderly, but for the young they wouldn't have had their education so seriously damaged. They wouldn't have had trillions of debt imposed upon them to shoulder for the rest of their lives. Besides toying with emotions, would it really be worse for them? I'm not convinced.
Am I the only PB regular that hasn't (knowingly) had the Rona yet? It is getting a bit last Boris supporter.....
None here yet. Shielding wife has meant extreme caution. Daughter probably narrowly avoided Covid pre christmas hols by having a non-Covid cough keep her off school for a few days when a bunch of class mates got Covid.
My daughter has had it but she is the only one in my family who has.
I'm surprised they can organise this at such short notice.....
Presumably they were trying to do it on the quiet, to get the London fireworks on the world news feeds but not have millions of people turn up to watch. They can’t hide the fact that they’ve now got people abseiling the Eye and vans full of explosives being unloaded onto barges on the Thames.
The London hospitality industry will be less than complementary about the Mayor, for completely ruining one of their busiest nights in two years.
There's no way that a display even a tiny fraction of the usual size could be put on in a few days. This display must have been planned, ordered formally etc months ago.
Indeed, would have taken weeks of planning, so they were never actually ‘off’, but Khan thought he could hoodwink everyone into not turning up by announcing that they were cancelled - and has now been busted when it’s quite clear they’re installing the display, after everyone has already made their plans for the evening.
A #COVID19 antiviral made by @Pfizer has been approved for use across the UK by @MHRAgovuk
There’s one company having a good pandemic.
Not only the first vaccine to market, but also the vaccine of choice for most of the Western world, and now an antiviral drug to treat those who do get it badly.
For every bunch of Sacklers giving the industry a bad name, there’s also a bunch of geniuses working to make the world in 2022 a better place.
And absolutely cleaning up on the money front from a project derisked by government. IP not shared. Massively unequal vaccine distribution hence prolonging the global pandemic.
I quite like what Astra did though. Bought their shares because of it.
Yep, there is a heck of a lot of bad behaviour in the drugs industry, and the Sacklers are just part of it.
"Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre is good on it - though it's not as good as 'Bad Science'.
As a recent example, Aducanumab’s approval for Alzheimer's seems worrying.
More background to the mess the BBC have got into...
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
That is a real mess. The BBC should correct and apologise - or state exactly what they think was said, and why they think it.
There's been some suggestion that the journalist who wrote the original article was in some way leant on. Either way, it's inescapable that they reported the anti-Semitism as "alleged" and allowed no such qualifier for the (now proven to be non-existent) anti-Muslim "slur". That's the real evidence for bias.
BBC - Whiff of infected breath enough to catch Omicron - Openshaw
More from Professor Peter Openshaw, who says someone only needs to be exposed to "a whiff of infected breath" to catch the highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus.
"Omicron is so infectious. We're lucky really that it wasn't this infectious when it first moved into human-to-human transmission," he told BBC Breakfast.
"We've had several iterations of this virus going through different stages of its evolution.
"It has ended up being so infectious that it almost needs just a whiff of infected breath and you could get infected."
No matter. Table service in pubs and banning parkrun will deal with it.
And early closing time.....
I thought the Quebec one being 10pm was particularly funny on the "we are doing something that won't make a blind bit of difference" scale.
Quebec is an actual curfew. For most people it means you have to be home by 10pm. I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not, but do you have any evidence that it doesn't make any difference? I would have thought it would have a pretty big effect on the amount of socialising done in certain demographics.
The fourth Ashes Test has been thrown into chaos after Australia's Travis Head tested positive for Covid on New Year’s Eve. The Australian batter is the first player from either side to test positive.
Aussie forfeit! Save the 5-0 drubbing we so richly deserve.
Comments
Blimey.
I do wonder if there's some genetic aspects to avoiding it, as my sister and brother in particular have jobs and hobbies where it is hard to avoid contact with others. Or perhaps it's just luck with a small sample size ...
Edit: and also, by saying this, I'm tempting fate...
So - presumably that means even a quick dash to food shop gives you a very good chance of getting it.
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/local-news/man-who-walked-through-bath-5100478
Which are abundant in those who’ve been infected, and not present for those who’ve not been infected, but vaccinated with the vaccines we’ve used in the UK.
(You’re probably correct about inactivated virus vaccines.)
'Bloody Nats obstructing our Brexity this and hammer dole scroungers that, Scottish voters are bound to flock back to Labour!'
So few??
Not only the first vaccine to market, but also the vaccine of choice for most of the Western world, and now an antiviral drug to treat those who do get it badly.
For every bunch of Sacklers giving the industry a bad name, there’s also a bunch of geniuses working to make the world in 2022 a better place.
But then it would have been going over an unvaccinated population, so swings and roundabouts.
The annual display was officially axed for a second year running in October after Covid previously extinguished 2020's plans.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/uknews/17185839/london-new-year-fireworks-go-ahead-performances/
I'm surprised they can organise this at such short notice.....
@nytimes
Breaking News: South Africa said health data suggested its Omicron peak had passed with no major spike in deaths, offering cautious hope to other countries."
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1476676232007802887
As reported yesterday, the Zoe app doctor believes that three quarters of common colds in the UK at the moment are actually Covid infections.
Again, these are the kinds of stats that the NHS will have been seeing which is why they seem unworried by Omicron.
At 1/300 the total number of potential hospitalisations from Omicron could be around 220k in all the UK and chances are the current hospitalisations are front loaded to the unvaccinated so the number is probably significantly lower.
So still spending the money to put it on, but having wrecked any opportunity for businesses to maximise sales over it, or people to make plans. Go Khan!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_(New_Style)_Act_1750
I'm far from convinced that having two years of lockdowns was in hindsight worth preventing 1% of global population from dying. Considering that life expectancy from here isn't 100 years for the people who were dying.
The BBC’s claim that Jewish people targeted by an antisemitic attack on Oxford Street were themselves guilty of an “anti-Muslim slur” has been proved beyond any doubt to be inaccurate, after the findings of two independent reports published today.
https://twitter.com/BoardofDeputies/status/1476500813581148162?s=20
We all know the answer: Something marginally different to England.
The London hospitality industry will be less than complementary about the Mayor, for completely ruining one of their busiest nights in two years.
But the inquiry should consider what level of death is not worth worrying about.
As of 24th December,
Over 50s,
Total - 75%
Pakistani - 42%
Black Caribbean - 44%
Black African - 45%
Occupations -
Elementary Trades (15% had nothing) - 37%
Construction (12% had nothing) - 40%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTftlM0MJUk
Scores of Nurses, doctors and hospital staff would be dead. Non-Covid patients would be totally without care rather than just delayed care. Shielders would have had no chance to shield and would be brutally effected.
We are talking disaster movie level of carnage,
There'd need to be surge money spent on funeral homes for a few weeks, but the rest of society I suspect would have been better off if it had just ripped out of control immediately. Cynical but true.
https://securityconference.org/en/news/full/russia-nato-and-us-oped-ischinger/
Three first teamers have it, and others in the staff.
I think the devolved governments are going to provide vindication for the Tories and the more the press reports on things like empty Edinburgh and empty grounds at Celtic Park etc versus what's happening in England could easily be a trigger for a poll revival.
In any case, if this was as infectious as Omicron and as virulent as the original disease you might easily be looking, even without such issues, at 5% mortality concentrated overwhelmingly among older people. Do you honestly think there would be no repercussions in society and the economy if more people than live in Greater Manchester all died in a short space of time?
We'd be looking at far more than a few busy funeral parlours...
You can extol the virtues of Sturgeon as much as you like but despite the SNP monopoly, Independence is as far away as ever and she knows it
I quite like what Astra did though. Bought their shares because of it.
https://www.premierleague.com/news/2430967
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/31/boy-16-dies-after-stabbing-in-hillingdon-west-london
When are they going to get serious over tackling this issue....
I think these are my favourite of the year so far:
- Professor Peston's mirror
- Binbaggate
- in something of a sequel to last year's Giant Baby story - And if Carrie is pregnant, I’m the Queen of Spades! (there were many, many tweets saying the same around then)
- The Johnson Variant; probably deserves a separate category for its odd wind of Keirdness
- a brand new entry; nearly 40 years ago Boris knew a girl in the year below at his college whose Dad had been a Labour MP and had a huge party mansion down the road. She turned out bad. So. Well. You know what that means.
I'm sure I've missed some corkers.
There's many things I would have done differently - I wouldn't have used the law to enforce a lockdown, but made it strong government public health advice, for example - but there was no easy way to avoid the difficulties of the last two years.
However being sad doesn't necessarily make it worse. There have been repercussions that we'll be paying probably for years to come if not the rest of our lives due to the disruptions to education, the amount borrowed, the longer waiting lists etc
Being utterly cynical if it had ripped through then that would have been awful for the elderly, but for the young they wouldn't have had their education so seriously damaged. They wouldn't have had trillions of debt imposed upon them to shoulder for the rest of their lives. Besides toying with emotions, would it really be worse for them? I'm not convinced.
"Bad Pharma" by Ben Goldacre is good on it - though it's not as good as 'Bad Science'.
As a recent example, Aducanumab’s approval for Alzheimer's seems worrying.
Bloody sprogs are plague carriers.