Coronavirus

[Dunners]

88,376 cases today. That's me in. I'm not risking catching it and having to isolate over Christmas.

I'll just have to spend more time on here with all of you.

[StillSpike]

Oh, goody.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

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.

There’s a slight tone of panic in news and in day to day conversation between people. You can understand why tbh but I think it’s still worth displaying some patience. And I’m the bigger f*cking worried there is.

I agree that you can’t wait. I agree with more restrictions until we know. But the messaging coming from the government is verging on fearmongering imo.

[tuffers#1]

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.

waiting to see, is exactly the reason so many died in previous waves. listening to worst case scenario means being better prepared & hopefully far fewer deaths.

[George M]

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.

And that all sounds very sensible. But as I said at the start , we cannot do anything with this variant to stop or slow its spread. The figures you have seen today are accepted by most scientists to be way off the mark. I go back to the common sense theme. You cannot believe that having to wear a mask in a small shop and then take it off to pop into weatherspoons next door was going to slow / stop the spread of the most transmissible variant so far. It won’t / hasn’t. I would happily conform to widespread , broad and strict restrictions if the need arose .
Your post implies that we have done something to stop it. We have not. The Government introduced some minor restrictions after the variant had been detected. It has doubled every two days since.
Someone ridiculed me for suggesting that I could not prove that the restrictions have not made a difference. I can. It’s doubled every two days.

[tuffers#1]

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.

And that all sounds very sensible. But as I said at the start , we cannot do anything with this variant to stop or slow its spread. The figures you have seen today are accepted by most scientists to be way off the mark. I go back to the common sense theme. You cannot believe that having to wear a mask in a small shop and then take it off to pop into weatherspoons next door was going to slow / stop the spread of the most transmissible variant so far. It won’t / hasn’t. I would happily conform to widespread , broad and strict restrictions if the need arose .
Your post implies that we have done something to stop it. We have not. The Government introduced some minor restrictions after the variant had been detected. It has doubled every two days since.
Someone ridiculed me for suggesting that I could not prove that the restrictions have not made a difference. I can. It’s doubled every two days.

you can f go into full lockdown that will stop the spread .Bodge wont though!

[Stowaway]

I went to a gig last night at the Electric Ballroom. Probably not the smartest idea in hindsight, seeing as we are visiting friends for Christmas and if I picked anything up then that’s our plans bolloxed. I’ll do a test tomorrow evening and keep my fingers crossed.

[BoniO]

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.

And that all sounds very sensible. But as I said at the start , we cannot do anything with this variant to stop or slow its spread. The figures you have seen today are accepted by most scientists to be way off the mark. I go back to the common sense theme. You cannot believe that having to wear a mask in a small shop and then take it off to pop into weatherspoons next door was going to slow / stop the spread of the most transmissible variant so far. It won’t / hasn’t. I would happily conform to widespread , broad and strict restrictions if the need arose .
Your post implies that we have done something to stop it. We have not. The Government introduced some minor restrictions after the variant had been detected. It has doubled every two days since.
Someone ridiculed me for suggesting that I could not prove that the restrictions have not made a difference. I can. It’s doubled every two days.

Wrong again. Your above claim that you can prove restrictions have made no difference to the infection rate is hokum. So, it's doubled, but may have trebled, or more without restrictions. Your point is false.

I'm not saying we're currently doing enough to slow down the virus. We need to do more for sure and we need to be doing it now, not weeks later when the infection rate will be sky high and many more people will bear the consequences of the high infection rate.

[tuffers#1]

add to that hospital staff getting infected & the NHS comes under real pressure . Any sign of the 50000 new nurses yet or are they all driving lorries now?

[Mistadobalina]

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.

There’s a slight tone of panic in news and in day to day conversation between people. You can understand why tbh but I think it’s still worth displaying some patience. And I’m the bigger f*cking worried there is.

I agree that you can’t wait. I agree with more restrictions until we know. But the messaging coming from the government is verging on fearmongering imo.

We're into unchartered territory is the thing. We don't know what case rates on this scale translates into with a highly vaccinated population and with a strain that evades vaccines at least somewhat. Debating vaccine passports for hours this week was a bit like talking about whether to install a lock on your front door next week whilst your entire neighbourhood is being pillaged.

The numbers are mind boggling. And it's not just the immediate health risk. If everyone simultaneously gets covid (not that much of an exaggeration based on how cases are rising), how does anything work? You're going to have millions isolating simultaneously. The disruption is going to be enormous.

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year. Not saying the situation will get anywhere near as grim as noone really knows, but the upshot (10 days of free socialising) Vs the risk (NHS absolutely swamped, thousands of unnecessary deaths) seems skewed to me, particularly as the messaging and case rates mean a defacto lockdown anyway.

[Dunners]

The numbers are mind boggling. And it's not just the immediate health risk. If everyone simultaneously gets covid (not that much of an exaggeration based on how cases are rising), how does anything work? You're going to have millions isolating simultaneously. The disruption is going to be enormous.

This is a very good point. Look at the disruption to global supply chains, energy price shocks and other inflationary pressures from the pandemic so far. The price of fertiliser is going to send food prices through the roof next year.

Omicron doesn't have to be anywhere near as severe as Delta, it's the transmission rate that can f*ck the whole world up. Enough people getting ill within a short time frame can bring about a whole new level of catastrophe.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

[BoniO]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

That's not a bad question as it happens.

[George M]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

Because by the time we were alerted to this variant, it was already here and well established.
Perhaps now is the time to review our viral security. It’s all well and good having a nuclear arsenal , but pointless if we can’t stop a foreign country introducing a deadly virus.

[Max B Gold]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

Because by the time we were alerted to this variant, it was already here and well established. Incorrect
Perhaps now is the time to review our viral security. It’s all well and good having a nuclear arsenal , but pointless if we can’t stop a foreign country introducing a deadly virus. Bollix

[George M]

How comes we’re in this position?

Because by the time we were alerted to this variant, it was already here and well established. Incorrect
Perhaps now is the time to review our viral security. It’s all well and good having a nuclear arsenal , but pointless if we can’t stop a foreign country introducing a deadly virus. Bollix

In what way.

[Mistadobalina]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

I imagine we got more cases imported initially because of London being an international travel hub with a lot of links to southern Africa. And obviously we have had nothing in place to restrict the growth of it. But it's so infectious that it's difficult to imagine anything other than a total lockdown will make a dent in new cases. Or of course everyone just ends up getting it.

It's quite surreal really. Even at the height of the pandemic in first wave or last winter, it was still a relatively small fraction of population infected at any given moment. They were assuming 200k a day on what, Tuesday? So probably safe to assume we're at least at 300k a day now. If those predictions of a million cases a day comes true, then you're talking tens of millions of cases in weeks. It's current trajectory apparently infects the entire country by new year. Obviously that can't happen but doesn't need to get that bad to be pretty bad.

[George M]

Because by the time we were alerted to this variant, it was already here and well established. Incorrect
Perhaps now is the time to review our viral security. It’s all well and good having a nuclear arsenal , but pointless if we can’t stop a foreign country introducing a deadly virus. Bollix

In what way.

We introduced travel restrictions from the region of origin around 4th December. That was almost a month after it was accidentally picked up in testing in South African hospitals. Plenty of flights from that region in that time. Of course it was already here.
My second point was a comment for discussion. If you disagree then tell us why.

[tuffers#1]

In what way.

We introduced travel restrictions from the region of origin around 4th December. That was almost a month after it was accidentally picked up in testing in South African hospitals. Plenty of flights from that region in that time. Of course it was already here.
My second point was a comment for discussion. If you disagree then tell us why.

So if bodge had called for an immediate lockdown ,we could have controlled the spread ,I think i agree .

[George M]

It wasn’t reported to WHO until 24th November. Hard to think they could have moved much quicker

[Max B Gold]

The first person to die from the Omicron variant in the UK was an unvaccinated conspiracy theorist, it has been claimed.

A man, giving his name only as John, made the claim after phoning in to Nick Ferrari’s radio show on LBC

[Currywurst and Chips]

Unvaccinated despite being in his 70s, apparently he thought it was all a conspiracy

This is why the anti vaccine conspiracies and playing down of Omicron's deadliness is so dangerous

[tuffers#1]

It wasn’t reported to WHO until 24th November. Hard to think they could have moved much quicker

its now the 12th of December& week 3 of lockdown .................

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

We are the canary in the goldmine with Omicron. Countries are going to be looking at us like the world did at Lombardy last year.

How comes we’re in this position?

Because by the time we were alerted to this variant, it was already here and well established.
Perhaps now is the time to review our viral security. It’s all well and good having a nuclear arsenal , but pointless if we can’t stop a foreign country introducing a deadly virus.

Presumably we were alerted at the same time as everyone else?

So. Why are we the world leaders in omicron?

[Long slender neck]

The first person to die from the Omicron variant in the UK was an unvaccinated conspiracy theorist, it has been claimed.

A man, giving his name only as John, made the claim after phoning in to Nick Ferrari’s radio show on LBC

Is this the same bloke who got stuck on the M25 while his old mum waa having a stroke?