While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
Spare a thought for poor old Macron, watching perfidious Albion getting freedom as he heaps restrictions on covid ridden France ahead of an election...
Is he heaping more restrictions on them? I'm not sure he is?
I never knew that Sunak was SUCH a eurosceptic. He was a Leaver in his teens, there is nothing opportunistic about it
For this reason alone he is sure to win. The Brexiteers want to secure Brexit. His biggest rivals are Remainers
I think Remainers licking their lips about taking us back into the EU or EU-lite are making a big mistake. The UK being in charge of our own laws, controlling immigration, not having appointed German aristocrats ruling us etc is still very popular in the red wall and most of the South. A Tory PM that exudes competence and reflects those values can restore the realignment of the electorate.
"not having appointed German aristocrats ruling us"
I didn't know the Brexiters had gone hard-on Republican (well except Ms Truss of course).
The Queen was born and brought up in the UK. As were both her parents. As were all four of her grandparents. How many generations do you have to go back to be free of immigrants do you have to be in the SNP view of the world?
Nothing to do with the SNP, but the Tory Brexiter view of the world.
It was you that was describing the Queen as German. And it appears the Tories are about to make a child of immigrants the British Prime Minister.
I didn't - just amused by the coincidence with the historical record.
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
I liked the SNP intervention “Is the Prime Minister getting rid of the covid rules, simply because he doesn’t understand them?”
It's actually what worries me - that it's being done because he's more frightened of the covid RG than covid.
No, it's being done because the public have had enough of restrictions. See the deets here. Public opinion has swung massively against Covid rules and lockdowns
Incidentally, if Parkway Camden is anything to go by - I've just been for a haircut and shopping - masking is falling away fast already. People cannot be bothered. And now they know masks are finished anyhow? Get rid
I've not been out today (glued to my bloody home office desk, buried in work) but I did wonder whether the impact would be immediate. Officially, the masking mandate doesn't expire until 0001hrs on Thursday week.
But it's now a lame duck rule. Is anyone going to enforce it for the next week? Is it already a gonna?
In Camden the immediate reaction appears to be "keep your mask but let it dangle from your ear", or "look I've still got a tatty old mask but it is barely covering my chin"
Quite a well calibrated response
I saw first hand why masks are bloody pointless in this country, on two separate tube trips last night - first one an old man took his mask off to sneeze into his hands and then proceeded to use the pole to get out of his seat after putting his mask back on, the second one a teenager took her mask off to cough but also didn't cover her mouth. I see this happen everyday. It's fine to look at scientific studies of how masks work if they're worn exactly right and changed every few hours but that's not how the public use them, half of all people don't wear them properly, the other half don't change them often enough, most are using pointless cloth masks which may actually cause transmission in winter due to condensation formation.
Marvellous. You saw two people taking masks off to cough or sneeze, and you think that proves they're pointless.
Perhaps you think the case of Steven Hilder proves that it's better not to bother with a parachute if you're skydiving.
To be fair - the paper "cloth" masks are a gesture. Use an FFP3. It's not like you can't get them...
Indeed – it is absolutely mind-bogglingly amazing that people STILL haven't got this memo.
I actually heard a friend of mind utter the ultimate covid cliche: "you don't wear a mask to protect yourself, you wear one to protect others."
Er, no, FFP3 protect both you and others. Why hasn't the government funded them for the vulnerable?
Doesn’t really matter. As with any defector, his destiny for the rest of his term is to be ultra-loyal, doing exactly as he is told, and soaking up any shit passed his way. If he gets re-elected and shows any promise, he might be rewarded with a small step on the ladder thereafter.
Shaun Woodward says hello
I think Shaun Woodward was slightly different though - he was married as I recall to the/a Sainsbury’s heiress and in the world of Blair’s Labour, who were very comfortable with wealth and enjoyed the social mixing and financial support of circles such as the Woodward-Sainsburys (sounds like an out of town hypermarket near Basingstoke), he was a very useful capture and so was given opportunities at a higher level.
I would imagine that the treacherous pig-dog of Bury South however will be forever lobby fodder at best as intellectually he’s probably not got much to offer, his back story is tarnished for many in Labour, he’s not connected in a useful way to business or society or media and so he’s not actually got great prospects I would think.
I always think it's a bit seedy when people slag off former colleagues the moment they've defected - I made a point of not doing it with people who left Labour in 2017-19, though I had to bite my lip at times. Ultimately MPs are entitled to change their views as the parties around them evolve. Let's see how he develops.
In Shaun's case, IIRC he has a disabled child and was especially upset about Conservative policy in that area.
I think it was Alan Howarth - an earlier Tory-to-Labour defector - who had the disabled child. Woodward was mainly driven by gay rights.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Fear not, when the pandemic subsides you can go back to worrying yourself about aliens and asteroids.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
Boris, like Andrew, believes the rules don't apply to him.
A good and reassuring thread on Omicron FFS alias Omicron sub-variant BA2
"As its been getting increasing attention recently, I'm going to write a short thread on what we currently know about BA.2. -what is BA.2? -what is BA.2 doing currently? -Should we be concerned about it?"
In brief, yes it is probably a bit more infectious than Omicron Classic - hence its rise in Denmark (and, surely, elsewhere, in time) - but it doesn't seem any more virulent and it doesn't seem to reinfect. It is a cause for mild concern, but no more, right now. Tho we need more data
On the other hand Denmark is in a bit of a pickle:
"1/2 The 12th national record in Europe today comes in #Denmark.
38,759 #Covid19 cases detected in the last 24 hours. That's >5,000 higher than yesterday's old record and a rise of more than 50% on last Wednesday.
The 7 day rate now reaches 4,970 AD/M which means that 0.5% of #Denmark's entire population is being infected with #Covid19 every day. Almost 3.5% in the last seven days alone. 16 more Covid-linked deaths. Covid patients hospitalised up 11 to 821 The ICU patient number is up one to 50"
Meanwhile, there are SOME - not many but SOME - experts who are seriously anxious that BA2 may mean reinfections - ie getting Delta or Omicron Classic will not defend you from Omicron FFS
The country that seems most odd is France, 460k infections reported yesterday and seemingly no end in sight. In the meantime it looks as though the ONS death data for England and Wales has decoupled from the dashboard data indicating around 30% of deaths for January are "with COVID" because around 10m people have had it in the last 28 days.
Do we have age profile data for France? The concern I (and some others) had was that some countries have large numbers of elderly people without any vaccinations at all. These "large numbers" are not huge vs the population as a whole. But given the enormous differential in outcomes for COVID based on age...
France is quite similar to us, rather than say Italy.. Median Age = 42.3 For UK it is 40.6. Italy = 47.
France UK
Fascinating. I wonder why there is that sharp drop in population at around 73 in France? And the peak and then drop at about the same age in the UK? At fist I thought something to do with the end of the war but that doesn't work as it is a few years out.
73 is roughly 1949/50 birthdate. I'm intrigued by the hollowing out of the profile for ages 63-73 in the UK, which is birthdates of 1950-1960. Which seems to be missing in France.
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, the numbers yesterday were crap and I agree that cases will tick up soon (and this will be blamed on the dropping of restrictions)
Re: point a) as this is pedanticbetting.com I have to point out that it's mathematically impossible to break the link, as every hospitalisation first needs a case. What changes is the ratio.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Don't forget that Denmark's immunity profile is nothing like the UK, they have got very little natural immunity to augment vaccine immunity. The UK has got tens of millions of people who have had two or three doses and also had an infection. Those super immune people are extremely unlikely to experience any significant symptoms from a reinfection.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
Boris, like Andrew, believes the rules don't apply to him.
If Brady comes up short of the 54 letters, and the Met. don't investigate Partygate, Johnson is absolutely right.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
Boris, like Andrew, believes the rules don't apply to him.
If Brady comes up short of the 54 letters, and the Met. don't investigate Partygate, Johnson is absolutely right.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Irrelevant what day it was as it's a w-o-w measure.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
Boris, like Andrew, believes the rules don't apply to him.
If Brady comes up short of the 54 letters, and the Met. don't investigate Partygate, Johnson is absolutely right.
I remain of my now oft-stated view that:
Boris is going nowhere.
The PCP are weak, weak, weak.
Yes, we were told that the disrespect to a mourning Queen would be fatal for a Tory PM yet, amazingly, he's still there.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Yup, another shitty day today. Positive tests by reporting date comfortably above 100,000 again.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Yup, another shitty day today. Positive tests by reporting date comfortably above 100,000 again.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
As I have been saying for some time, this could be BA2 (or it could be schools going back etc etc, but that was a while ago?)
Denmark dipped (much less than us, tho, and it may have just been a weekend effect), then rose again, and is still rising. Same in Croatia
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Yup, another shitty day today. Positive tests by reporting date comfortably above 100,000 again.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
Of course, this happened in South Africa too - steep ascent, steep descent, blip... ...and then a continuation of the steep descent. Now I cannot think of a good reason why omicron should always have a blip on the way down. But it's an example of how on a day to day basis the virus is unpredictable and we shouldn't get too hung up on this sort of thing.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Yup, another shitty day today. Positive tests by reporting date comfortably above 100,000 again.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
Of course, this happened in South Africa too - steep ascent, steep descent, blip... ...and then a continuation of the steep descent. Now I cannot think of a good reason why omicron should always have a blip on the way down. But it's an example of how on a day to day basis the virus is unpredictable and we shouldn't get too hung up on this sort of thing.
Oh I absolutely agree, and I'm not personally worried. My fears are always for business confidence, and general wellbeing. We have become totally, axiomatically, obsessed with 'cases' as a population. My guess is that today's figure was higher than last Wednesday, and the usual suspects will now come back shrieking for new restrictions.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yesterday was a Tuesday.
Yes, I know, but looking at the figures which aren't day of week dependent does not give me short term comfort. I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Yup, another shitty day today. Positive tests by reporting date comfortably above 100,000 again.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
As I have been saying for some time, this could be BA2 (or it could be schools going back etc etc, but that was a while ago?)
Denmark dipped (much less than us, tho, and it may have just been a weekend effect), then rose again, and is still rising. Same in Croatia
Does it matter either way anymore?
Our peak number of cases over Christmas was just under 250k in a day. We had about 1-in-15 people infected at the same time across England, and although it's been hard in the hospitals everything has managed to cope.
So, if we have another peak of infection now, will it make much of a difference?
Domestically, questions of tax and inflation are more important. Further afield the threat from Russia and China. Covid is yesterday's news.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
I mean - clearly - it will eventually come here in numbers as tends to happen with super-transmissible Covid variants. At the moment it is apparently here in tiny numbers. We think. But remember you have to do proper genome sequencing to find BA2, you can't rely on PCR tests to pick it up - they don't.
Are we still doing tons of sequencing? Perhaps we are. Or perhaps a lot of "Stealth Omicron" is ALREADY here, hence the sudden uptick in cases
I don't know, and nor do you. So go jump in a lake
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
Sure: they're being hit now.
But they're being hit while more than half the adult population is triple jabbed. And they're being hit by Omicron, which is - sure - killing and hospitalising people, but not a particularly alarming rate. There's 50 people in ICU with Covid in Denmark, up one.
They'll have the equivalent of the UK's exit wave compressed into the course of about five weeks.
The Queen is a class act who understands concepts like duty, honour and leadership. It's hard to imagine a person who embodies fewer of her many virtues than Boris Johnson.
Boris, like Andrew, believes the rules don't apply to him.
If Brady comes up short of the 54 letters, and the Met. don't investigate Partygate, Johnson is absolutely right.
A good and reassuring thread on Omicron FFS alias Omicron sub-variant BA2
"As its been getting increasing attention recently, I'm going to write a short thread on what we currently know about BA.2. -what is BA.2? -what is BA.2 doing currently? -Should we be concerned about it?"
In brief, yes it is probably a bit more infectious than Omicron Classic - hence its rise in Denmark (and, surely, elsewhere, in time) - but it doesn't seem any more virulent and it doesn't seem to reinfect. It is a cause for mild concern, but no more, right now. Tho we need more data
On the other hand Denmark is in a bit of a pickle:
"1/2 The 12th national record in Europe today comes in #Denmark.
38,759 #Covid19 cases detected in the last 24 hours. That's >5,000 higher than yesterday's old record and a rise of more than 50% on last Wednesday.
The 7 day rate now reaches 4,970 AD/M which means that 0.5% of #Denmark's entire population is being infected with #Covid19 every day. Almost 3.5% in the last seven days alone. 16 more Covid-linked deaths. Covid patients hospitalised up 11 to 821 The ICU patient number is up one to 50"
Meanwhile, there are SOME - not many but SOME - experts who are seriously anxious that BA2 may mean reinfections - ie getting Delta or Omicron Classic will not defend you from Omicron FFS
The country that seems most odd is France, 460k infections reported yesterday and seemingly no end in sight. In the meantime it looks as though the ONS death data for England and Wales has decoupled from the dashboard data indicating around 30% of deaths for January are "with COVID" because around 10m people have had it in the last 28 days.
Do we have age profile data for France? The concern I (and some others) had was that some countries have large numbers of elderly people without any vaccinations at all. These "large numbers" are not huge vs the population as a whole. But given the enormous differential in outcomes for COVID based on age...
France is quite similar to us, rather than say Italy.. Median Age = 42.3 For UK it is 40.6. Italy = 47.
France UK
Fascinating. I wonder why there is that sharp drop in population at around 73 in France? And the peak and then drop at about the same age in the UK? At fist I thought something to do with the end of the war but that doesn't work as it is a few years out.
73 is roughly 1949/50 birthdate. I'm intrigued by the hollowing out of the profile for ages 63-73 in the UK, which is birthdates of 1950-1960. Which seems to be missing in France.
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
The UK data is based on 2020 numbers, so a 73 age would be 1947 birth.
I presume the immediate dip is then due to the austerity measures and food rationing?
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
Also IIRC kids in Denmark have been out of school for less days that anywhere else in Europe (with the exception of Sweden)
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
Leon together with some others hi Chris come here to catastrophise to exorcise their fears in a supportive environment and also hear others say don't be so stupid.
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
I mean - clearly - it will eventually come here in numbers as tends to happen with super-transmissible Covid variants. At the moment it is apparently here in tiny numbers. We think. But remember you have to do proper genome sequencing to find BA2, you can't rely on PCR tests to pick it up - they don't.
Are we still doing tons of sequencing? Perhaps we are. Or perhaps a lot "Stealth Omicron" is ALREADY here, hence the sudden uptick in cases
I don't know, and nor do you. So go jump in a lake
Well, I do actually. We do more sequencing than anyone else in the world and the data is published by UKHSA. I’d send you the link but sadly there’s not great 4G or 5G at the bottom of this lake.
A good and reassuring thread on Omicron FFS alias Omicron sub-variant BA2
"As its been getting increasing attention recently, I'm going to write a short thread on what we currently know about BA.2. -what is BA.2? -what is BA.2 doing currently? -Should we be concerned about it?"
In brief, yes it is probably a bit more infectious than Omicron Classic - hence its rise in Denmark (and, surely, elsewhere, in time) - but it doesn't seem any more virulent and it doesn't seem to reinfect. It is a cause for mild concern, but no more, right now. Tho we need more data
On the other hand Denmark is in a bit of a pickle:
"1/2 The 12th national record in Europe today comes in #Denmark.
38,759 #Covid19 cases detected in the last 24 hours. That's >5,000 higher than yesterday's old record and a rise of more than 50% on last Wednesday.
The 7 day rate now reaches 4,970 AD/M which means that 0.5% of #Denmark's entire population is being infected with #Covid19 every day. Almost 3.5% in the last seven days alone. 16 more Covid-linked deaths. Covid patients hospitalised up 11 to 821 The ICU patient number is up one to 50"
Meanwhile, there are SOME - not many but SOME - experts who are seriously anxious that BA2 may mean reinfections - ie getting Delta or Omicron Classic will not defend you from Omicron FFS
The country that seems most odd is France, 460k infections reported yesterday and seemingly no end in sight. In the meantime it looks as though the ONS death data for England and Wales has decoupled from the dashboard data indicating around 30% of deaths for January are "with COVID" because around 10m people have had it in the last 28 days.
Do we have age profile data for France? The concern I (and some others) had was that some countries have large numbers of elderly people without any vaccinations at all. These "large numbers" are not huge vs the population as a whole. But given the enormous differential in outcomes for COVID based on age...
France is quite similar to us, rather than say Italy.. Median Age = 42.3 For UK it is 40.6. Italy = 47.
France UK
Fascinating. I wonder why there is that sharp drop in population at around 73 in France? And the peak and then drop at about the same age in the UK? At fist I thought something to do with the end of the war but that doesn't work as it is a few years out.
73 is roughly 1949/50 birthdate. I'm intrigued by the hollowing out of the profile for ages 63-73 in the UK, which is birthdates of 1950-1960. Which seems to be missing in France.
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
The UK data is based on 2020 numbers, so a 73 age would be 1947 birth.
I presume the immediate dip is then due to the austerity measures and food rationing?
Ah, good spot. = 1946 conception. It did take time fort people to get married and settle down and find a nice new prefab of their own, etc.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
Sure: they're being hit now.
But they're being hit while more than half the adult population is triple jabbed. And they're being hit by Omicron, which is - sure - killing and hospitalising people, but not a particularly alarming rate. There's 50 people in ICU with Covid in Denmark, up one.
They'll have the equivalent of the UK's exit wave compressed into the course of about five weeks.
That's not really that much of a disaster.
Certainly, on the face of it, their pandemic has been much preferable to what we experienced. Or indeed the entire rest of Europe. The Nordics have had the best Covid, in Europe, no question - so far
But the key is - so far. As to whether it is a disaster that they will now catch Omicron BA2 en masse, we do not really know. Long Covid lurks.
We just don't understand, yet, what the long term sequelae of a Covid infection will turn out to be. So much is hidden. Occultated. The Dark Side of the Plaguetime Moon
A good and reassuring thread on Omicron FFS alias Omicron sub-variant BA2
"As its been getting increasing attention recently, I'm going to write a short thread on what we currently know about BA.2. -what is BA.2? -what is BA.2 doing currently? -Should we be concerned about it?"
In brief, yes it is probably a bit more infectious than Omicron Classic - hence its rise in Denmark (and, surely, elsewhere, in time) - but it doesn't seem any more virulent and it doesn't seem to reinfect. It is a cause for mild concern, but no more, right now. Tho we need more data
On the other hand Denmark is in a bit of a pickle:
"1/2 The 12th national record in Europe today comes in #Denmark.
38,759 #Covid19 cases detected in the last 24 hours. That's >5,000 higher than yesterday's old record and a rise of more than 50% on last Wednesday.
The 7 day rate now reaches 4,970 AD/M which means that 0.5% of #Denmark's entire population is being infected with #Covid19 every day. Almost 3.5% in the last seven days alone. 16 more Covid-linked deaths. Covid patients hospitalised up 11 to 821 The ICU patient number is up one to 50"
Meanwhile, there are SOME - not many but SOME - experts who are seriously anxious that BA2 may mean reinfections - ie getting Delta or Omicron Classic will not defend you from Omicron FFS
The country that seems most odd is France, 460k infections reported yesterday and seemingly no end in sight. In the meantime it looks as though the ONS death data for England and Wales has decoupled from the dashboard data indicating around 30% of deaths for January are "with COVID" because around 10m people have had it in the last 28 days.
Do we have age profile data for France? The concern I (and some others) had was that some countries have large numbers of elderly people without any vaccinations at all. These "large numbers" are not huge vs the population as a whole. But given the enormous differential in outcomes for COVID based on age...
France is quite similar to us, rather than say Italy.. Median Age = 42.3 For UK it is 40.6. Italy = 47.
France UK
Fascinating. I wonder why there is that sharp drop in population at around 73 in France? And the peak and then drop at about the same age in the UK? At fist I thought something to do with the end of the war but that doesn't work as it is a few years out.
73 is roughly 1949/50 birthdate. I'm intrigued by the hollowing out of the profile for ages 63-73 in the UK, which is birthdates of 1950-1960. Which seems to be missing in France.
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
The UK data is based on 2020 numbers, so a 73 age would be 1947 birth.
I presume the immediate dip is then due to the austerity measures and food rationing?
Thanks for that.
Readingup about baby booms, France had the largest one in Eueope, and ours was split between 1940s and 1960s.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
Leon together with some others hi Chris come here to catastrophise to exorcise his fears in a supportive environment and also hear others say don't be so stupid.
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
Or, I am a kind of genius soothsayer, able to see portents hidden from God's lesser creatures, ie the rest of you
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
Leon together with some others hi Chris come here to catastrophise to exorcise his fears in a supportive environment and also hear others say don't be so stupid.
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
Or, I am a kind of genius soothsayer, able to see portents hidden from God's lesser creatures, ie the rest of you
I may start commenting in quatrains
Yes it is one or the other. And as we are a betting website....
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
Leon together with some others hi Chris come here to catastrophise to exorcise their fears in a supportive environment and also hear others say don't be so stupid.
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
The old pantwetter seems remarkably ungrateful for all the times folk have told him to stop being so fucking stupid.
I never knew that Sunak was SUCH a eurosceptic. He was a Leaver in his teens, there is nothing opportunistic about it
For this reason alone he is sure to win. The Brexiteers want to secure Brexit. His biggest rivals are Remainers
I think Remainers licking their lips about taking us back into the EU or EU-lite are making a big mistake. The UK being in charge of our own laws, controlling immigration, not having appointed German aristocrats ruling us etc is still very popular in the red wall and most of the South. A Tory PM that exudes competence and reflects those values can restore the realignment of the electorate.
"not having appointed German aristocrats ruling us"
I didn't know the Brexiters had gone hard-on Republican (well except Ms Truss of course).
The Queen was born and brought up in the UK. As were both her parents. As were all four of her grandparents. How many generations do you have to go back to be free of immigrants do you have to be in the SNP view of the world?
lol. Reminds me of the local newspaper report here on a woman whose family moved here from Essex during the war, when she was a teenager, and she then spent the rest of her life on the island, involved in various charities and good works, eventually dying in her 90s. The story headline was “Well-known Chelmsford woman dies aged 95”.
You can take the lady out of The 'Ford, but you can't take The 'Ford out of the lady
The only time I voted Tory was in a County Council election on Canvey Island back around 1960. My father was the Conservative candidate. He was Welsh but had lived and worked on or near Canvey for 30 years. The Labour candidate, who had come to the island from London fringe Essex after my father ran under the slogan 'An Essex Man for Essex Council. And won. Good man, though. In later years I voted for him.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
Sure: they're being hit now.
But they're being hit while more than half the adult population is triple jabbed. And they're being hit by Omicron, which is - sure - killing and hospitalising people, but not a particularly alarming rate. There's 50 people in ICU with Covid in Denmark, up one.
They'll have the equivalent of the UK's exit wave compressed into the course of about five weeks.
That's not really that much of a disaster.
Certainly, on the face of it, their pandemic has been much preferable to what we experienced. Or indeed the entire rest of Europe. The Nordics have had the best Covid, in Europe, no question - so far
But the key is - so far. As to whether it is a disaster that they will now catch Omicron BA2 en masse, we do not really know. Long Covid lurks.
We just don't understand, yet, what the long term sequelae of a Covid infection will turn out to be. So much is hidden. Occultated. The Dark Side of the Plaguetime Moon
Why would their Omicron wave be worse - in aggregate - that our Delta + Omicron waves? I mean, they've got less natural immunity, and it's all happening at once. But on the other hand they're well vaxxed and Omicron is typically less severe than Delta.
Los Angeles County has 12 million people. In the last really big wave - a year ago - Covid ICU occupancy was around 1,200 people at its peak. (And most ICUs were full: they were turning people away. So, the real number of should have been a lot higher.)
Denmark is half the size of Los Angeles. They have 50 people in ICU. And their ICU capacity is going to be nowhere near peak.
So, sure, it's going to be a rough couple of weeks for them. But they're not in any particular danger of seeing ICU usage spiralling out of control. Indeed, all the charts are pretty encouraging.
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
Your take spectacularly wrong. Omicron, BA2, the Tom Cobbly variant when it emerges, will all reinfect. Coronaviruses reinfect. That is well known. We have seen it in those that were endemic before 2020 causing common colds. We will all get Covid on multiple occasions over the course of our lives. However each time we do get it our immune systems will say “oh, I’ve seen your type before” and deal with it efficiently and without (save in the immunosuppressed) too much trouble. That is what they mean by uncoupling cases from hospitalisations. Immunity is not a zero sum game.
"Spectacularly wrong"?
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
Leon together with some others hi Chris come here to catastrophise to exorcise their fears in a supportive environment and also hear others say don't be so stupid.
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
The old pantwetter seems remarkably ungrateful for all the times folk have told him to stop being so fucking stupid.
I genuinely don't make light of it. It is an entirely natural human emotion/action. And whatever else PB is it is a community which supports and looks after its own. Apart from @HYUFD (just kidding even him).
While we are all whipping off our masks, let it be noted that yesterday Europe recorded more cases in a single day than at any other moment in the pandemic
Maybe a dozen European countries are at peak case-load - again for the whole pandemic. There are also hefty numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. And cases are rising again around the world - Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, etc etc etc - some of them reaching new peaks
This is presumably Omicron. The plague is far from over for 80% of the world.
And lurking in the shadows is the *possibility* - no more than that at the moment - that Omicron BA2 is behind some of the European troubles. There are weird double Omicron peaks occurring. eg Croatia
I've been consistently bullish on Omicron. But I must admit, yesterday's numbers in the UK were very disappointing. We will see a WoW uptick in cases by day of test in a few days - that's not just a reporting quirk. And the peak in deaths keeps approaching but we haven't yet got to a stage where we can see it in the rear view mirror.
I remain optimistic that: a) the link between cases and hospitalisations and deaths - while not broken - has been damaged. Far more cases than before are utterly trivial. b) deaths/hospitalisations from vs with, etc. etc. c) it will all be manageable and most importantly d) restrictions are justifiable neither in principle nor in practice.
But I'm not pretending covid's gone away, nor will do so for some time yet.
What happens in the rest of the world where they are less vaxxed and less priorly immune with omicron will be fascinating to see. If I were to guess I would guess it'll be a lot of worry about not much a la South Africa.
Yes, if BA2 is more transmissible (seems likely now) then it will surely come here and our cases will rise again. I don't see why we would be immune. Tho our much greater level of prior infection, and an excellent booster roll out, will help
The big worry then is: can it reinfect? And can it reinfect people who have already had Omicron the First?
If the answer is yes that could be trouble
If it does reinfect, one would expect an even milder case, as the body will already have Omicron antibodies.
Let's hope so
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
Did you see that one of the main Danish newspapers has just apologised to the public for failing the properly hold the government Covid figures to account over the last 22 months?
All that being said... Denmark has had a bloody brilliant Covid.
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
Sure: they're being hit now.
But they're being hit while more than half the adult population is triple jabbed. And they're being hit by Omicron, which is - sure - killing and hospitalising people, but not a particularly alarming rate. There's 50 people in ICU with Covid in Denmark, up one.
They'll have the equivalent of the UK's exit wave compressed into the course of about five weeks.
That's not really that much of a disaster.
Certainly, on the face of it, their pandemic has been much preferable to what we experienced. Or indeed the entire rest of Europe. The Nordics have had the best Covid, in Europe, no question - so far
But the key is - so far. As to whether it is a disaster that they will now catch Omicron BA2 en masse, we do not really know. Long Covid lurks.
We just don't understand, yet, what the long term sequelae of a Covid infection will turn out to be. So much is hidden. Occultated. The Dark Side of the Plaguetime Moon
Why would their Omicron wave be worse - in aggregate - that our Delta + Omicron waves? I mean, they've got less natural immunity, and it's all happening at once. But on the other hand they're well vaxxed and Omicron is typically less severe than Delta.
Los Angeles County has 12 million people. In the last really big wave - a year ago - Covid ICU occupancy was around 1,200 people at its peak. (And most ICUs were full: they were turning people away. So, the real number of should have been a lot higher.)
Denmark is half the size of Los Angeles. They have 50 people in ICU. And their ICU capacity is going to be nowhere near peak.
So, sure, it's going to be a rough couple of weeks for them. But they're not in any particular danger of seeing ICU usage spiralling out of control. Indeed, all the charts are pretty encouraging.
Er, I never said it would be worse. I was agreeing with you. They have had an excellent plague, inasmuch as anyone can do that, and if Covid ends this year (whatever "ending" means) then they will almost certainly have a better record to show than any other European country, apart from maybe another Nordic nation - it is a close run thing with Norway?
My point was more What Lies Beyond. Which is necessarily concealed from us. Long Covid. What is endemicity, in effect? And so on.
But this is not the greatest point to make in the history of PB, and if I am reduced to such obviousness, it is time I went and did some packing. Later
- Cases. After the big falls, some signs that the rate of decrease is slowing. R is back to 0.71 - which is still extremely low for this pandemic - Admissions. Down - MV Beds. Down - In Hospital. Down - Deaths. Heading down at last, it seems.
A good and reassuring thread on Omicron FFS alias Omicron sub-variant BA2
"As its been getting increasing attention recently, I'm going to write a short thread on what we currently know about BA.2. -what is BA.2? -what is BA.2 doing currently? -Should we be concerned about it?"
In brief, yes it is probably a bit more infectious than Omicron Classic - hence its rise in Denmark (and, surely, elsewhere, in time) - but it doesn't seem any more virulent and it doesn't seem to reinfect. It is a cause for mild concern, but no more, right now. Tho we need more data
On the other hand Denmark is in a bit of a pickle:
"1/2 The 12th national record in Europe today comes in #Denmark.
38,759 #Covid19 cases detected in the last 24 hours. That's >5,000 higher than yesterday's old record and a rise of more than 50% on last Wednesday.
The 7 day rate now reaches 4,970 AD/M which means that 0.5% of #Denmark's entire population is being infected with #Covid19 every day. Almost 3.5% in the last seven days alone. 16 more Covid-linked deaths. Covid patients hospitalised up 11 to 821 The ICU patient number is up one to 50"
Meanwhile, there are SOME - not many but SOME - experts who are seriously anxious that BA2 may mean reinfections - ie getting Delta or Omicron Classic will not defend you from Omicron FFS
The country that seems most odd is France, 460k infections reported yesterday and seemingly no end in sight. In the meantime it looks as though the ONS death data for England and Wales has decoupled from the dashboard data indicating around 30% of deaths for January are "with COVID" because around 10m people have had it in the last 28 days.
Do we have age profile data for France? The concern I (and some others) had was that some countries have large numbers of elderly people without any vaccinations at all. These "large numbers" are not huge vs the population as a whole. But given the enormous differential in outcomes for COVID based on age...
France is quite similar to us, rather than say Italy.. Median Age = 42.3 For UK it is 40.6. Italy = 47.
France UK
Fascinating. I wonder why there is that sharp drop in population at around 73 in France? And the peak and then drop at about the same age in the UK? At fist I thought something to do with the end of the war but that doesn't work as it is a few years out.
73 is roughly 1949/50 birthdate. I'm intrigued by the hollowing out of the profile for ages 63-73 in the UK, which is birthdates of 1950-1960. Which seems to be missing in France.
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
The UK data is based on 2020 numbers, so a 73 age would be 1947 birth.
I presume the immediate dip is then due to the austerity measures and food rationing?
Thanks for that.
Readingup about baby booms, France had the largest one in Eueope, and ours was split between 1940s and 1960s.
With the age data, think the way to read it was from top to bottom. There's some nice animations out there.
So, as stated, UK has a brief post-war boom but it takes until the 60s for the real boom to come through. You can even see the effect of the end of the 1970s in the data for the UK.
I post the USA as a final comparison.
note a smaller immediate boom, but then a large sustained growth in population.
- Cases. After the big falls, some signs that the rate of decrease is slowing. R is back to 0.71 - which is still extremely low for this pandemic - Admissions. Down - MV Beds. Down - In Hospital. Down - Deaths. Heading down at last, it seems.
English ventilation numbers are now the lowest since July.
Given the increasing numbers of hospitalisations with rather than from covid that might be a better indicator of the medical situation.
Sadiq Khan has announced that masks will continue to be mandatory on all Transport for London services, including the tube.
He can say what he likes, there's no legal basis for them beyond Thursday.
Not many will wear them, and it won't be enforced. Pointless
It is absolutely pointless but is a nudge and no doubt the same kind of people who wear a mask while walking on their own over a ploughed field in Shropshire will wear them on the Central Line.
I just watched that. I have never heard of him. What an irritating moron.
On the train today x2. First this morning = masks: 100% (apart from me who can make a Starbucks [apols] coffee last over an hour).
This afternoon = 50%. mask wearing.
Just the hint that they will no longer be mandated has pre-empted action from people.
Yes, I mused earlier that I thought that that might happen. Lame duck law now – who is going to enforce a law that expires at midnight tomorrow week?
Certainly works for me. I walked into my dry cleaners this arvo and thought: Fuck it, why wear a mask? They are going anyway
My previously masked dry cleaning guys clearly felt the same. Usually they wear masks. Not today
I am so impressed with the on the ground work you do.You've told us so many times that no one at all in your area is wearing masks any more, and yet you still manage to find someone who has _only_just_ stopped wearing one. You must be having to go miles to find them by now.
I said yesterday Arsenal are a joke of a club, if this proves to be true, then they should be relegated two divisions.
The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
The FA told The Athletic: “The FA is aware of the matter in question and is looking into it.”
The Athletic knows the identity of the player in question but has agreed not to reveal it at this time due to privacy reasons.
Multiple gambling industry insiders have told The Athletic that the pattern of betting surrounding the player being shown a yellow card during the match was highly unusual.
Betting on the minutiae of sporting events, such as yellow cards, is a type of betting known as ‘spot betting’.
Regular betting during football matches sees people wager on an overall outcome — i.e. the winner of a game.
Spot betting, however, involves individual outcomes and poses more of an issue to governing bodies, because a single individual can decide the outcome of a market by, for example, conceding a corner in a particular ten minute interval.
This can turn a seemingly trivial incident into a moment worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Although spot fixing is considered a significant problem in football leagues around the world, in the Premier League it is thought to be very rare, because players are paid so much money.
I'm feeling more chipper than I have for a while. Johnson survives as a lame duck, his premiership destined to limp along in a way that makes John Major's post Black Wednesday look (to coin a phrase) strong and stable, and this time next week I shall be back at my deeply unfashionable and elitist Mayfair club with a couple of Martinis to start me off on an evening to celebrate the nights drawing out.
I just watched that. I have never heard of him. What an irritating moron.
On the train today x2. First this morning = masks: 100% (apart from me who can make a Starbucks [apols] coffee last over an hour).
This afternoon = 50%. mask wearing.
Just the hint that they will no longer be mandated has pre-empted action from people.
Yes, I mused earlier that I thought that that might happen. Lame duck law now – who is going to enforce a law that expires at midnight tomorrow week?
Certainly works for me. I walked into my dry cleaners this arvo and thought: Fuck it, why wear a mask? They are going anyway
My previously masked dry cleaning guys clearly felt the same. Usually they wear masks. Not today
I am so impressed with the on the ground work you do.You've told us so many times that no one at all in your area is wearing masks any more, and yet you still manage to find someone who has _only_just_ stopped wearing one. You must be having to go miles to find them by now.
I think Leon has been fairly clear that people in London are wearing them, performatively, in shops, then cheerfully discarding them where they are not required. Seeing people not wearing them where they ARE required is new news.
The only shop where I can be consistently sure of being in a majority of non-maskers round here is One Stop.
Sadiq Khan has announced that masks will continue to be mandatory on all Transport for London services, including the tube.
He can say what he likes, there's no legal basis for them beyond Thursday.
Indeed last time they were mandatory on the Tube but not nationally, observance was generally low (except at very busy times when people often decided to wear one to reduce the risk of catching a cold – including me!)
I'm feeling more chipper than I have for a while. Johnson survives as a lame duck, his premiership destined to limp along in a way that makes John Major's post Black Wednesday look (to coin a phrase) strong and stable, and this time next week I shall be back at my deeply unfashionable and elitist Mayfair club with a couple of Martinis to start me off on an evening to celebrate the nights drawing out.
I am not chipper at all. I don't care about parties but I do care about the damage Johnson can do to our country and our society as long as he remains in power.
I said yesterday Arsenal are a joke of a club, if this proves to be true, then they should be relegated two divisions.
The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
Surely you can't be getting enough money on their niche markets to make it worth while for an EPL player?
Actually, unless they are already in the hole to some very dodgy people from other gambling e.g. in the way Chopra got himself in trouble.
But even then spot fixing a yellow card is such a stand out event, even more than wides / no-balls in cricket....I mean the cricket spot fixing you can understand as you only need to slow a run rate by a bit to make it work.
I said yesterday Arsenal are a joke of a club, if this proves to be true, then they should be relegated two divisions.
The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
The FA told The Athletic: “The FA is aware of the matter in question and is looking into it.”
The Athletic knows the identity of the player in question but has agreed not to reveal it at this time due to privacy reasons.
Multiple gambling industry insiders have told The Athletic that the pattern of betting surrounding the player being shown a yellow card during the match was highly unusual.
Betting on the minutiae of sporting events, such as yellow cards, is a type of betting known as ‘spot betting’.
Regular betting during football matches sees people wager on an overall outcome — i.e. the winner of a game.
Spot betting, however, involves individual outcomes and poses more of an issue to governing bodies, because a single individual can decide the outcome of a market by, for example, conceding a corner in a particular ten minute interval.
This can turn a seemingly trivial incident into a moment worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Although spot fixing is considered a significant problem in football leagues around the world, in the Premier League it is thought to be very rare, because players are paid so much money.
Reminds me Mohammed Amir, poor lad. And the Hindu Pakistani who played for Essex, Dinesh Kaneria. Careers are going to be wrecked for the benefit of some shadowy crooks.
Sadiq Khan has announced that masks will continue to be mandatory on all Transport for London services, including the tube.
He can say what he likes, there's no legal basis for them beyond Thursday.
Of course there's a legal basis, it's the conditions of carriage. (As well as common sense and basic courtesy to others).
Richard that way lies masks forever. It should be a risk-based measure. Tell me Khan isn't doing this to differentiate himself from the govt. Hospitalisations and hospital capacity in no way justify any restrictive measures.
No one worried pre-Covid about people wearing masks in case they had the flu. For the jabbed this is what it appears Omicron is like. So why masks now, anywhere?
I said yesterday Arsenal are a joke of a club, if this proves to be true, then they should be relegated two divisions.
The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
The FA told The Athletic: “The FA is aware of the matter in question and is looking into it.”
The Athletic knows the identity of the player in question but has agreed not to reveal it at this time due to privacy reasons.
Multiple gambling industry insiders have told The Athletic that the pattern of betting surrounding the player being shown a yellow card during the match was highly unusual.
Betting on the minutiae of sporting events, such as yellow cards, is a type of betting known as ‘spot betting’.
Regular betting during football matches sees people wager on an overall outcome — i.e. the winner of a game.
Spot betting, however, involves individual outcomes and poses more of an issue to governing bodies, because a single individual can decide the outcome of a market by, for example, conceding a corner in a particular ten minute interval.
This can turn a seemingly trivial incident into a moment worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Although spot fixing is considered a significant problem in football leagues around the world, in the Premier League it is thought to be very rare, because players are paid so much money.
Comments
I actually heard a friend of mind utter the ultimate covid cliche: "you don't wear a mask to protect yourself, you wear one to protect others."
Er, no, FFP3 protect both you and others. Why hasn't the government funded them for the vulnerable?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ0O6PpqABA
This guy agrees with you. Yes BA2 is bloody infectious, but the outcomes still seem mild, even IF it can reinfect (and we don't know that yet)
"This Danish hospital graph might be useful for clinical outcome speculation. Pink line = total inpatients (both with/for Covid), red = ICU, black = ventilators. Even as BA.2 has risen in Denmark, the classic Omicron pattern of more admissions but fewer serious ones hasn't changed"
https://twitter.com/RufusSG/status/1483808576120537092?s=20
Another statistical curiosity worth noting. Denmark is now recording its highest excess death rate for the whole pandemic. However their excess death rate has actually been BELOW average since Feb 2020
https://twitter.com/Thoughtfulnz/status/1483525587507740672?s=20
There could be any number of reasons for this
It's various post-war sociological things I expect. Which may be delayed returns (Uk servicemen were demobbed over several years) generating more births, or NHS starting up, or rationing stopping people feeling confident, or waiting for stable new jobs, or various things.
As to why France is not hollowed out then, I am not sure. Did France's greater agrarian base help them recover more quickly?
I'm not sure how quickly French came home from eg Labour camps, or were demobbed from the Free French forces.
Or impact of war casualties, or which country had a larger baby boom post-war.
I did wonder about wartime effects - eg 70k UK war brides or 200k babies in France due to the occupation, but that would need some detailed work.
Re: point a) as this is pedanticbetting.com I have to point out that it's mathematically impossible to break the link, as every hospitalisation first needs a case. What changes is the ratio.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/we-failed-danish-newspaper-apologises-for-not-questioning-government-covid19-numbers/news-story/5f360ab5764cf9bcfb0d8edae7160658
I think the long term trend will be in the right direction though, and I think the abandoning of Plan B is the right thing. But I think we're looking at quite a slowdown in the rate of decrease.
Boris is going nowhere.
The PCP are weak, weak, weak.
I'm not even sure I *have* a take, as such, I am just the inquisitive type and I find discovery enjoyable. And I am discovering that SOME experts (emphasis on SOME) are 1, concerned that BA2 will evade immunity provided by prior infection, even BA1, and that it might be more virulent, so you could get a worse dose of the Wuhan Clap the second (or third or fourth) time around, especially if you were damaged in any way (Long Covid etc) by your initial encounters
I am merely a conduit, providing the fresh water of scientific opinion to the thirsty citizens of PB
"Prof. Christina Pagel
@chrischirp
It is a little odd that Denmark is still growing in cases and hospital admissions when they started same time as UK and are more boosted as well...
It could be differences in behaviour? or that Denmark has more BA.2 and we've got BA.1? or we have more prev infection? odd. 1/2"
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1483752127960915974?s=20
I know many find her deeply irritating at times (I'm one of them) but the debate in that thread is informative
The weakness is stunning.
Better news on hospitalisations, although that is of course a lagging indicator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfJYSBmzj8
I do like the English Accent of the translator. About half an hour in length plus some responses.
Denmark dipped (much less than us, tho, and it may have just been a weekend effect), then rose again, and is still rising. Same in Croatia
It successfully pulled off risk stratification. It had fewer restrictions for most of 2021 than the UK. It's economy reached pre-crisis levels in Summer 2021, before pretty much anywhere else in Europe. Government debt-to-GDP barely moved during Covid.
Oh yeah, and it actually recorded negative excess deaths.
And it did all that without severing itself off from the world, storing up major problems for later.
I can't really fault their government's approach.
Sunday 9 Dec: 73,546
Sunday 16 Dec: 74,880
So that's a rise of 1,334, 0r about 1.5%
As its by specimen date the 16th will probably go up a bit in the next day or two.
Its not a surge, but it is a rise, which I/we were not expecting: why? I don't know but would like to here theory's?
I delayed/slow build form the schools going back is possibly the most likely IMO but the BA2 stain could also be a factor.
...and then a continuation of the steep descent.
Now I cannot think of a good reason why omicron should always have a blip on the way down.
But it's an example of how on a day to day basis the virus is unpredictable and we shouldn't get too hung up on this sort of thing.
That's amazing about their economy. Debt barely budging? Incredible performance
Looks like their "luck" may just be running out now, however. Covid reaches every nation, in the end, and gives them a shoeing. In some form
Our peak number of cases over Christmas was just under 250k in a day. We had about 1-in-15 people infected at the same time across England, and although it's been hard in the hospitals everything has managed to cope.
So, if we have another peak of infection now, will it make much of a difference?
Domestically, questions of tax and inflation are more important. Further afield the threat from Russia and China. Covid is yesterday's news.
I mean - clearly - it will eventually come here in numbers as tends to happen with super-transmissible Covid variants. At the moment it is apparently here in tiny numbers. We think. But remember you have to do proper genome sequencing to find BA2, you can't rely on PCR tests to pick it up - they don't.
Are we still doing tons of sequencing? Perhaps we are. Or perhaps a lot of "Stealth Omicron" is ALREADY here, hence the sudden uptick in cases
I don't know, and nor do you. So go jump in a lake
But they're being hit while more than half the adult population is triple jabbed. And they're being hit by Omicron, which is - sure - killing and hospitalising people, but not a particularly alarming rate. There's 50 people in ICU with Covid in Denmark, up one.
They'll have the equivalent of the UK's exit wave compressed into the course of about five weeks.
That's not really that much of a disaster.
https://twitter.com/PhantomPower14/status/1483832441383047176?s=20
This afternoon = 50%. mask wearing.
Just the hint that they will no longer be mandated has pre-empted action from people.
I presume the immediate dip is then due to the austerity measures and food rationing?
Take a bow PB, we may not all be trained psychotherapists but psychotherapy is what we can do here nevertheless.
But the key is - so far. As to whether it is a disaster that they will now catch Omicron BA2 en masse, we do not really know. Long Covid lurks.
We just don't understand, yet, what the long term sequelae of a Covid infection will turn out to be. So much is hidden. Occultated. The Dark Side of the Plaguetime Moon
Readingup about baby booms, France had the largest one in Eueope, and ours was split between 1940s and 1960s.
I may start commenting in quatrains
My previously masked dry cleaning guys clearly felt the same. Usually they wear masks. Not today
The Labour candidate, who had come to the island from London fringe Essex after my father ran under the slogan 'An Essex Man for Essex Council.
And won.
Good man, though. In later years I voted for him.
Los Angeles County has 12 million people. In the last really big wave - a year ago - Covid ICU occupancy was around 1,200 people at its peak. (And most ICUs were full: they were turning people away. So, the real number of should have been a lot higher.)
Denmark is half the size of Los Angeles. They have 50 people in ICU. And their ICU capacity is going to be nowhere near peak.
So, sure, it's going to be a rough couple of weeks for them. But they're not in any particular danger of seeing ICU usage spiralling out of control. Indeed, all the charts are pretty encouraging.
So v happy to field it all from whomever.
My point was more What Lies Beyond. Which is necessarily concealed from us. Long Covid. What is endemicity, in effect? And so on.
But this is not the greatest point to make in the history of PB, and if I am reduced to such obviousness, it is time I went and did some packing. Later
- Cases. After the big falls, some signs that the rate of decrease is slowing. R is back to 0.71 - which is still extremely low for this pandemic
- Admissions. Down
- MV Beds. Down
- In Hospital. Down
- Deaths. Heading down at last, it seems.
So, as stated, UK has a brief post-war boom but it takes until the 60s for the real boom to come through. You can even see the effect of the end of the 1970s in the data for the UK.
I post the USA as a final comparison.
note a smaller immediate boom, but then a large sustained growth in population.
A Russian poster of the Triple Entente. L to R - Marianne, Mother Russia and Britannia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_France_(1900–present)#:~:text=From a population of around,of 40 million in 1945
Given the increasing numbers of hospitalisations with rather than from covid that might be a better indicator of the medical situation.
The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
The FA told The Athletic: “The FA is aware of the matter in question and is looking into it.”
The Athletic knows the identity of the player in question but has agreed not to reveal it at this time due to privacy reasons.
Multiple gambling industry insiders have told The Athletic that the pattern of betting surrounding the player being shown a yellow card during the match was highly unusual.
Betting on the minutiae of sporting events, such as yellow cards, is a type of betting known as ‘spot betting’.
Regular betting during football matches sees people wager on an overall outcome — i.e. the winner of a game.
Spot betting, however, involves individual outcomes and poses more of an issue to governing bodies, because a single individual can decide the outcome of a market by, for example, conceding a corner in a particular ten minute interval.
This can turn a seemingly trivial incident into a moment worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Although spot fixing is considered a significant problem in football leagues around the world, in the Premier League it is thought to be very rare, because players are paid so much money.
https://theathletic.com/3079669/2022/01/19/fa-looking-into-yellow-card-shown-to-arsenal-player-over-suspicious-betting-patterns/
Seeing people not wearing them where they ARE required is new news.
The only shop where I can be consistently sure of being in a majority of non-maskers round here is One Stop.
Actually, unless they are already in the hole to some very dodgy people from other gambling e.g. in the way Chopra got himself in trouble.
But even then spot fixing a yellow card is such a stand out event, even more than wides / no-balls in cricket....I mean the cricket spot fixing you can understand as you only need to slow a run rate by a bit to make it work.
And the Hindu Pakistani who played for Essex, Dinesh Kaneria. Careers are going to be wrecked for the benefit of some shadowy crooks.
No one worried pre-Covid about people wearing masks in case they had the flu. For the jabbed this is what it appears Omicron is like. So why masks now, anywhere?