Coronavirus

[George M]

So the latest news from South Africa is that the Omicron variant has displaced the delta variant. 98% of tests proving positive for Omicron. What they don’t say is what will happen to Delta. Disappear, good thing . Sit in the background and wait , bad thing. Still no evidence that Omicron will cause any problems other than disrupting us because of isolation issues.
The BBC coverage of this is disgraceful. This morning on Radio 5 , they had live broadcasting around the country at supermarkets , building sites , schools etc to get up to date news on how bad things are. I was surprised that they were not broadcasting from Lapland to report on the struggles Santa has with staff shortages.
I hope they devote as much time after Xmas on toothaches caused by over consumption of chocolate and the adverse affects it is having on school attendance.

[George M]

And to add insult to injury, France has decided to ban us from travelling to France to stop the spread of Omicron. More stupid decisions by stupid people. Perhaps this variant will not arrive there from mainland Europe.

[George M]

And to put that into perspective , Russian vaccination rates are one of the lowest in Europe but they are welcome to travel to France. What is happening to the World .?

[BoniO]

When is the voting for "Dumbest Boarder of the Year"?

Something made me think of it....

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

And to add insult to injury, France has decided to ban us from travelling to France to stop the spread of Omicron. More stupid decisions by stupid people. Perhaps this variant will not arrive there from mainland Europe.

[George M]

When is the voting for "Dumbest Boarder of the Year"?

Something made me think of it....

So instead of the silly comments , please point out any factually incorrect details

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

88k cases today.

[George M]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

[George M]

When is the voting for "Dumbest Boarder of the Year"?

Something made me think of it....

So instead of the silly comments , please point out any factually incorrect details

Still waiting , Bonio

[Max B Gold]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

[Long slender neck]

88k cases today.

Should hit 100k by the weekend on this trajectory.

[Long slender neck]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Hospitalisations will follow cases, by what percentage I dont know, but the scientists are spooked which should tell you everything. What I think you're not appreciating is it will be trouble even if its a low percentage compared to previous strains.

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

I don't think it's irrelevant when they are at a new record high, especially as the difference looks to be a significant increase since yesterday, which in turn was a significant increase from the previous day.

[BoniO]

When is the voting for "Dumbest Boarder of the Year"?

Something made me think of it....

So instead of the silly comments , please point out any factually incorrect details

Still waiting , Bonio

There are only so many hours in the day mate. Maybe I’ll offer some constructive criticism next time.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

Hate to be that person backing George here but they matter in terms of understanding where we are and projecting where we will be with hospitalisations, etc…but they don’t really serve much purpose when understanding how severe it is

If, out of the 88k today, 20 go to hospital and 2 die then that tells us something about the severity. If 30k go to hospital and 10k die then that tells us something else.

There’s, understandably a lot of fear about omicron; me included. But there’s also a lot of unnecessary sh*tting of pants and scaremongering (starting from the government). We need to be patient and see what happens over the next few weeks. It’s worrying times but people are losing their heads a bit.

[George M]

88k cases today.

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

I completely understand the reasoning behind the concern over high infection rates. If millions are infected , 1% of infected hospitalised , blah , blah blah. But the true figures for case numbers is more likely to be in the 100s of thousands . Those infection rates are not showing , to the same degree , in hospitalisations or deaths.
I am not oblivious to the possible danger of Omicron. I understand that we are different in many ways from South Africa . What I object to is the terrifying reporting of it on the BBC and the lack of common sense generally.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Talking of. Any update of hospitalisations/deaths of omicron after the government announced 10 and 1 a few days ago?

[George M]

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

Hate to be that person backing George here but they matter in terms of understanding where we are and projecting where we will be with hospitalisations, etc…but they don’t really serve much purpose when understanding how severe it is

If, out of the 88k today, 20 go to hospital and 2 die then that tells us something about the severity. If 30k go to hospital and 10k die then that tells us something else.

There’s, understandably a lot of fear about omicron; me included. But there’s also a lot of unnecessary sh*tting of pants and scaremongering (starting from the government). We need to be patient and see what happens over the next few weeks. It’s worrying times but people are losing their heads a bit.

At last. And thank you. I am not under estimating the potential danger. But to report 14 hospitalisations with , not of , the variant yesterday was embarrassing. More people were hospitalised from incidents on the M25 yesterday.

[Long slender neck]

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

I completely understand the reasoning behind the concern over high infection rates. If millions are infected , 1% of infected hospitalised , blah , blah blah. But the true figures for case numbers is more likely to be in the 100s of thousands . Those infection rates are not showing , to the same degree , in hospitalisations or deaths.
I am not oblivious to the possible danger of Omicron. I understand that we are different in many ways from South Africa . What I object to is the terrifying reporting of it on the BBC and the lack of common sense generally.

They wont show yet, it takes the average person a week or two from infection to be hospitalised.

[George M]

So instead of the silly comments , please point out any factually incorrect details

Still waiting , Bonio

There are only so many hours in the day mate. Maybe I’ll offer some constructive criticism next time.

You had time to ridicule. Try to find time to deconstruct my posts. I may agree.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

I completely understand the reasoning behind the concern over high infection rates. If millions are infected , 1% of infected hospitalised , blah , blah blah. But the true figures for case numbers is more likely to be in the 100s of thousands . Those infection rates are not showing , to the same degree , in hospitalisations or deaths.
I am not oblivious to the possible danger of Omicron. I understand that we are different in many ways from South Africa . What I object to is the terrifying reporting of it on the BBC and the lack of common sense generally.

They wont show yet, it takes the average person a week or two from infection to be hospitalised.

Could be an unbearably depressing Christmas. Let’s hope for the best.

[Max B Gold]

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

I completely understand the reasoning behind the concern over high infection rates. If millions are infected , 1% of infected hospitalised , blah , blah blah. But the true figures for case numbers is more likely to be in the 100s of thousands . Those infection rates are not showing , to the same degree , in hospitalisations or deaths.
I am not oblivious to the possible danger of Omicron. I understand that we are different in many ways from South Africa . What I object to is the terrifying reporting of it on the BBC and the lack of common sense generally.

They wont show yet, it takes the average person a week or two from infection to be hospitalised.

Which is why infection rates matter. Thank you.

The higher the rate the more people infected the more deaths. A small percentage of a large number can also be a large number.

[StillSpike]

I too hope that the new variant is less dangerous than previous strains - and I'm also conscious that my hopes in that regard also make me more likely to cling on to any news that indicates that.

However, given that we know that hospitalisations follow infections by 1 or 2 weeks, perhaps we should be a bit scared of that 14 hospitalisations quoted above. What were the Omicron Variant infections like 1 or 2 weeks ago ? Tiny?, or smaller? Perhaps 14 as a % of a tiny number of Omicron variant infections in the first week of December is a scarily big %, actually?

I hope that the Omicron was a significant chunk of the infections longer ago that we know - but not picked up because of the lack of gene testing - because otherwise my hopes that it will turn out to be less dangerous may come to naught. I'll exercise caution until the data becomes clearer.

[BoniO]

I completely understand the reasoning behind the concern over high infection rates. If millions are infected , 1% of infected hospitalised , blah , blah blah. But the true figures for case numbers is more likely to be in the 100s of thousands . Those infection rates are not showing , to the same degree , in hospitalisations or deaths.
I am not oblivious to the possible danger of Omicron. I understand that we are different in many ways from South Africa . What I object to is the terrifying reporting of it on the BBC and the lack of common sense generally.

They wont show yet, it takes the average person a week or two from infection to be hospitalised.

Which is why infection rates matter. Thank you.

The higher the rate the more people infected the more deaths. A small percentage of a large number can also be a large number.

Beat me to it Max. We could wait a few weeks, as has been suggested, to have a better idea around hospitalisation and death rates. However, if the results then showed high death rates then we would have been complicit - by doing nothing for a few weeks - in the possibly avoidable deaths of many. We need to do whatever we can to reduce infection rates ASAP. This is exactly what Chris Whitty has already said and it makes perfect sense to me.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

As , I believe , it has been agreed on here many times , it’s hospitalisations and , ultimately, deaths that are the concern . Case numbers are irrelevant

Stop being an IMBECILE just for the day. Of course infection rates matter.

Hate to be that person backing George here but they matter in terms of understanding where we are and projecting where we will be with hospitalisations, etc…but they don’t really serve much purpose when understanding how severe it is

If, out of the 88k today, 20 go to hospital and 2 die then that tells us something about the severity. If 30k go to hospital and 10k die then that tells us something else.

There’s, understandably a lot of fear about omicron; me included. But there’s also a lot of unnecessary sh*tting of pants and scaremongering (starting from the government). We need to be patient and see what happens over the next few weeks. It’s worrying times but people are losing their heads a bit.

Who is losing their heads?

You can’t be patient, see how it pans out, then react.