UKC

Covid-19 +ve cases that is.

That is ~4 doublings, or 16 times the frequency of positive cases by Christmas.

Discuss (further restrictions, lockdowns etc).

Covid gives you cancer and 5G doesn't exist. Or is that the other way round? It's just so confusing!

Broad population immunity by March 2022 due to infection by Omicron and the pandemic ends.

Any view of number of covid deaths between now and that "end"?

You make it sound so simple.

I will lay anyone a very big bet there will not be 1.4m positive cases per day by Christmas.

(1) I don't really believe those doubling time numbers and they don't apply to total cases anyway, (2) Omicron cases will moderate as they increase (they always do), (3) we only have capacity for about 800,000 PCR tests per day or something.

What Si dH said basically.

Also, demographics.  Growth in older folks much slower.

So does that mean government/media are trying to scare everyone with the apocalyptic predictions? 

I thought most people knew that

Possibly, I have no idea of their motivations. Getting people to take notice can only help.

If case numbers get really high, it'll probably become more useful to watch PCR positivity than case numbers anyway.

I don't disagree with your first part necessarily, but what do you mean by growth in older people being slower? Are you saying that it will take a viral infection longer to get to the shedding of virus stage in older people? I'm not sure that that is the case, since in some cases the virus overwhelms the production mechanisms, and thereby produces viral particles in a swifter manner, and the slower metabolism may also apply to an immune system which is slower to defend than in a younger adult. Hence the virus is less affected by the individual's immune system, so can more likely get to work unimpeded on viral production at an earlier stage.

They don't socialise as much as young adults, or as closely, they are all boosted up, and most of them are scared so being far more careful. Mask compliance is much higher. The difference from a booster alone should be a 3-4 x lower risk of infection (75% protection, Vs up to 20% from two doses.) Add the rest in and it will be a very big difference. Some of this might be lost by mixing with younger generations over Christmas.

Possibly. Johnson is desperate to 'get Christmas done'. He's terrified he might have to cancel it. He's even taken to wearing a mask. Not fitted properly, mind...

From the plotting threads, the fastest rate of growth in cases is amongst the young. Case rates in older age groups are increasing far more slowly, for now.

Cross purposes.  I mean demographics of the growth, not individual age related factors and the progression of an infection.

Doubling time of cases is much slower in older adults.  Most of the bonkers growth is in under 35s in London for now.  Some mix of increased precaution and increased 3rd dose uptake in older adults - those more susceptible to hospitalisation - is much less rapid in actual and in exponential terms.

Edit: As AJM says “for now”.

If all those young adults with rapidly rising prevalence go and spend hours indoors with parents and grandparents over Christmas, well, that would probably be bad.

At that rate starting from scratch entire population infected in 26 days. On your assumption it doesn’t slow down.  

Except when families gather from around the country for special celebrations. Good job we haven't got one of those coming for some time...

Thought you were on about my belly. 

We were looking to cancel our Christmas family get together as a result of the latest predictions with omicron but some of the figures given don’t seem realistic, no wonder people are starting to disregard all the advice coming out.  We have two family members being treated for cancer at the moment, it’s a difficult dilemma between actually see an elderly relative or hide away because of the fear of infection. The mental health issues of another Christmas apart are not nice.  Bl@#dy government mixed messages. 

And how many with long COVID?

Is that a realistic trend?

Surely we need  a longer run of data to confirm that it is doubling EVERY 2 days?

It might help this time, but  will it help the next time they want to get people to take notice

Of course. It assumes being on a straight line of a log plot, and obviously it changes as news of increasing numbers possibly changes behaviour (or not).

It's only a short term extrapolation. I'm only trying to get people discussing likely scenarios.

Most of the increase in numbers may be in the under 35's, but they are not all tarred with the same brush. On a statistical note of 2-3 individuals, my daughter and friends are ~25-30 and are in Haringay, but not going into London out of hours. Whilst last few times that I've been on the underground there has been a fair number of people in the 30's-40's age group with no sense of social distancing, and especially a real trend of lack of wearing of masks.

Also, network transmission theory (credit WT 2020)

How much longer? A day, a week, a fortnight, a month or a year? How long is enough for you?

Growth is growth. At this stage it doesn't really matter if 2 day doubling means crisis a few days ago, if 3 day doubling means crisis reached today and if 4 day doubling means crisis next week. It's the same crisis on a different day.

I don't think today's crisis (see below) would be very different if delayed for a few days.

"Sadiq Khan declares major incident and is 'incredibly worried' London will run out of police" Daily Mail 

"London mayor declares ‘major incident’ to help Covid-hit hospitals" Guardian

Amusing that Mail refers to law & order and Guardian refers to NHS, clichés abound!

Well, obviously it can't continue to double every two days forever; you're making a silly pedantic point.

After 16 and a bit doublings, the current UK rate would encompass the entire ~8 billion population of the earth. 32 days at a two-day doubling.

But what we're concerned about is the current rate of doubling.

It will come down to the models SAGE are running , convincing the politicians who make the decisions, and then the political will to implement some difficult legalisation if necessary.   What we don’t want is the shitshow of guidance and law as before.   There are 7 deaths from Omicron, and 77 hospitalisations so far.   Therefore that data in isolation isn’t going to drive much.

Sadly, what we want is irrelevant.  If decisive action is what's needed, the same shitshow as before is what we'll get.

"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly"
- Peter Cook

Can't we get broad population immunity by giving everybody a booster instead of achieving it by giving everybody Omicron?

There's no law that says the virus is done with mutations that escape immunity from previous infections after Omicron.   It would be nice if it was but it would be prudent to assume that it's not.  

Sadly not if we see another shitshow of incoherent guidance and law then it will cause more problems than it solves and lead to mass non compliance 

I am fairly reliably informed that in Warwick hospital at the moment, EVERY COVID patient in ICU is unvaccinated. This sort of statistic should be more widely broadcast ......though no doubt the anti Vax ultras will dismiss it as a lie, some of those who remain hesitant might just be persuaded.

I also came across on  a local FB group a family posting that their relative had not committed suicide as some rumours suggested, but had died of COVID as a staunch anti masker and anti Vaxer. 

It would be a major concern if the current rate was sustained.

However, that is unlikely and shouting about the current short term rate may backfire if people spot that cases haven't  doubled again in 2 days time and assume that someone is crying wolf.

Sadiq Khan was making similar claims about London yesterday.

Probably won't continue doubling at that rate for long just like all the other variants. Perhaps a bigger wave overall than delta but I don't buy 70%+ of us will catch this one just the same as all the other waves (or many of the other seasonal viruses). Its typical for the R number to be much  higher at the middle term of a new variant of any virus than towards the end.

That said I do think it has potential to cause some issues (beyond the unfortunate deaths that will occur), by the nature of how fast it spreads, even if it does get proved to be less virulent (which I currently mildly suspect it could be but wouldn't be 'that' surprised either way if vax status /  previous infection are accounted for etc )

Sounds like suicide to me.

Obvious threat to life - took no precautions - died of it.

No different to stepping out in front of a bus in my book.

(Except for the fact that the NHS wasted valuable resources trying to save said person's life).

That was rather my take on it but for a rare occasion, I held back.

Which, of course, they would also do for somebody who did step in front of a bus.

Unless it was immune defeating, in which case you would rapidly have an extinction event as you couldn't recover from it, then it will eventually peak when it runs out of people to infect.  The question is if that peak is high enough that the NHS and wider society can't cope.

Would you be so willing to make the same proclamation if someone died free-soloing? 

Or was killed through some other rare misfortune that they hadn't taken all available measures to evade?

I'm not exactly having a go at you here.

But I'm finding it increasingly difficult to ignore how, throughout this epidemic, it has become socially acceptable to make some quite profound judgements, and public statements, about other people's demise that would almost certainly be considered utterly unacceptable otherwise. 

It is as if covid is granting people leeway to behave in ways that they would feel inappropriate in other circumstances.

I think that you are proving to be correct: But my horrible thought is that if, as a result of it being highly prevalent in the population, which is also proving correct, then what can ensue? I am worried that we end up with a variant or recombinant which has the severity of the Delta's pathogenicity, and greater transmission rates, even if not quite as high in the R numbers as Omicron. Then we have a hellish variant.

On the other front, I feel that it is foolhardy to follow other countries, and start planning 4th vaccinations just now. We need to stop and observe more. Nevertheless, the old problem obtains, which is that it is harder to evaluate cell-mediated immunity.

The estimates I’ve seen are within 10% of delta’s intrinsic lethality; so way more than WT and more than alpha.   Just seems less lethal because it’s spreading in people so immune they couldn’t even catch delta.

To me that would be an immune evading variant that also accesses the orders of magnitude higher lethality original SARS had.  I wonder if this virus isn’t a big reducer of the risk of another nCov-1 outbreak; seems to be  cross immunity the other way?  

We just call it “soloing” this side of the Atlantic.

Dying of covid after refusing a vaccine whilst there’s an ongoing pandemic isn’t a “rare” misfortune.  Unless you define “rare” as on the order of 100 people a day in the UK alone…

It may have escaped your attention but healthcare - intensive care in particular - has been stuffed to the gun whales here in the UK by vaccine refusers for 4 months now.

If people having accidents whilst soloing (sorry, free-soloing) had been making up 50% to 80% of ITU occupancy for the last 4 months I rather thinking the gutter press would be making a massive thing out of it, far more than they are re: covid.  One single mountain rescue and the comments sections are full of people demanding the casualty pay for it…

this is so true - how manipulated were the newspaper and web reported of this!

In reply to veteye:

Life seems to be getting you down based on your last couple of posts. Look after yourself.

I’ve just been agog at the way the reporting has got this backwards.

John Burn-Murdoch of the FT has been trying his best to explain this well; but I think most of the reporters more or less just don’t understand, and the first reports out of SA were not well qualified.  

Re: your comment to veteye - absolutely seconded!  

Veteye - I’m not clear how they ever got sub 2-day doubling times.  Here’s my backing out of numbers and doubling time estimates from the SGTF data - before the Christmas data blackout it had backed off to 7 days at the top level.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/covid_plotting_57_continued-742...

Spot on - but as someone who isn’t keen on lockdowns I’m rather grateful journalists are all scientifically illiterate Oxbridge PPE grads.

No more lockdowns thanks to the BBC.

Thank you for your concerns. I assume that the figures that came out initially were from a smaller statistical sample. I can see that the behaviour seems to have changed, and I also assume that the degree of challenge is relevant. 

So even if someone is positive, they may not be as high level a producer of virions, to people in their vicinity, partly because they have reasonably good immunity. My 76 year old friend whom I was supposed to pick up this afternoon, down in Ealing has tested positive. He is treble vaccinated, yet has some of the more modern Ab based polyarthritis treatments, alongside methotrexate, which may affect his immune response. Nevertheless, he has not got clinical signs. So presumably, if he is producing virus, then he is not producing vast numbers, and anyone in contact may pick up a low challenge number.

My recent posts are wary, due to seeing variations in shift and drift in the past in other microbes, and I just feel that there are too many people out there, who are fueling the fire, with their non-serious attitude to the epidemiology of the Corona virus.

Thankfully to combat the lack of care, is a hardworking research industry, starting to help on many fronts. All credit to them.

I also fully support your comments about the unvaccinated.

I think many people will either have not tested at all, or reported OK when not, to see them through Christmas. There'll be a massive spike after Christmas and I think not locking down was a massive gamble.

It might work out OK, if deaths and hospitalisations stay low, I've got it at the moment and it's been very mild baring one 24 hour period at the beginning. I am however still testing positive 8 days down the line, double jabbed, and probably had it asymptomatically when I was getting my booster!

Omicron might be the weakening of the virus to an extent we can live with it, let's hope so.

Forget SARS, omicron x MERS is what you should worry about.

CB

edit: to clarify, recombination is not really an issue, but we are not even close to how deadly a Coronavirus can be. MERS spreading as effectively as omicron* is close to the famed "ebeasles" (ebola spreading like measles) our epidemiologists were panicking about 25 years ago!

*edit2:  or omicron by chance becoming as lethal as MERS, which is MUCH more plausible....

I wonder how bad that would be in comparison to a ‘proper bad’ disease like the Black Death? It would be pretty grim for our modern society’s I think.

Thst’s backwards IMO.  

Omicron is not the mechanism of the weakening, it’s the inescapable litmus tests.

Infection by wild type, alpha and delta and vaccination with between 1 and 3 doses have raised population immunity for most, and infection thinned the most vulnerable (more completely amongst vaccine refusers in the delta era than in the very old on the pre-vaccination pre-delta era) by death, to the point any mildly divergent strain, whilst as intrinsically as lethal as say alpha, should only cause mild disease.

Omicron is just the first variant to be able to put this to the test…

There’s a Churchill quote about the arithmetic of fear that springs to mind here.

Does MERS mainly kill by immune dysregulation?  The silver lining of covid might be that immunologically and pharmaceutically we’re much better prepared for nature’s next go at those viruses.

Re: ebeasels;

• It might be less globally lethal than SARS-nCov-2, as the severity would be immediately undeniable, meaning no scope for misinformation or confusion and an immediate willingness to suspend far more civil rights whilst rounding up the agitators.  Perhaps this bloody virus has been such a problem because it gave just enough leeway for the idiots to get their voices heard.  If peoples organs were dissolving out of their bodies a day after someone sneezed near them I don’t think anyone would have gone with the “but the economy” approach early on.  Except perhaps Professor Carl Henhegan.
• Or it might end the world.  The possibility is just a story you life scientists make up to scare people though, right?  Right?…

It's still out there, fortunately antibiotics are currently effective.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53303457

A 30-year-old with no pre-existing conditions and in good health is suicidal and their death to be mocked, if they don't wish to be vaccinated?

Which really has little bearing on whether the language around someone's death, normally demanding far more sensitivity, can instead become open season for ridicule.  

Quite. All the more reason why it's a shame to see people resorting to the same behaviour.

Oh yes, I really mean a disease as bad in terms of impact - what was it, a third of Europe’s population dead?

maybe be ebeasels would fit that bill.

As winter tree says, a really bad disease would rapidly stop global movement - bad consequences for the modern world.

Foolhardy individuals who flaunt their rights to avoid vaccination, and so risk not only their own lives (as proven, sic), but the lives of many others, who are working their damnedest, to save everybody, do not deserve as much reverence in their (most likely) avoidable death. At what level that is pitched, may be debatable.

Rubbish. There's a demand for sensitivity when in the presence of people who may have known the deceased. When some random wanker dies as a result of their own stupidity, there isn't, and never has been, a demand for sensitivity. 

Indeed. Darwin Award, anyone...?

Camel shagger virus kills about 30% of those clinically ill, so if we had a new Sars cov 2 variant cropping up now behaving even roughly similar it would be good night civilization.

Something like the hypothetical ebeasles doesn't even require much thinking about, just take your favourite viral zombie apocalypse movie and multiply by ten. Game over. There is a reason coronaviruses were picked as a more realistic template for various viral pandemic war games. Shame no one really acted on them!

The Chinese way of doing quarantine by welding the doors of residential highrises shut does indeed work, but is not an option here, and thankfully so!

CB

Yes, or in chipmunks in Colorado infecting tourists feeding them with chips.

By the way, quite a few UK squirrels carry Mycobacterium leprae....

CB

The plague and the 30 years war killed off about 70% of the inhabitants of my village back in the 17th century. Those decades and the ones immediately afterwards were at the sametime the most productive in terms of poetry and music we ever had in Germany.  Forget the 1960s...

I believe humans are cockroaches, and we could, as societies, recover at a late medieval to early modern level. Semiconductor factories or antibiotics? No chance for a few generations at least.

CB

Disagree, I don't think it would take that long because we would still have the knowledge of how to do these things.

But it might take a long time for such things to be available for all, postcode lottery++

You should be careful before you brand people you don't know as stupid and almost wish them to die.

If I see someone waving a lit match around a petrol pump I don't need to know them.

How should we brand this  « new » poster who just signed up to likely lie about their NHS experiences and advocate for private health on another thread?

Next thing you’ll know they’ll be on a covid thread trying to shoot down any recognition of the nationwide and healthcare exhausting scale of the problem caused by vaccine refusers….  Probably with a dollop of righteous indignation.  You should call your next account “Captain Bucky O Hare”.  

A very good friend of mines wife is an A&E consultant in Chesterfield. Says the same thing. One of his other pals, the lead A&E consultant at the Northern General in Sheffield, echos this. He said that the freshly admitted are overwhelmingly unvaxxed and also older overweight men.

They both say it's not a good idea to get unwell or have an accident needing emergency care right now. Soloing hard should be avoided at all costs.

I was recently kicked off my local FB Group. I was the single person across the whole group arguing against 4 local infamous anti-everything attention seekers. I was robust but nothing compared to some online behaviour. I checked the admin's profile, also an anti-vaxxer. What hope is there for the right information to get out?

A 30 yr old in good health acting as a vector for the spread of a virus crippling the health service.

exactly this

People often complain that these Tory PPE graduates are unqualified, but it is hard to argue that a *degree* in PPE doesn't qualify you to help your mates sell it.

Interestingly, my son broke his ankle (Weber A so only a "boot" required) last week (*). In and out of Macclesfield Hospital in 70 minutes; the whole thing, triage, X-ray, diagnosis and here's a boot & crutches.

I reckon for non-critically urgent stuff, it would be quicker for me to drive to Macclesfield A&E etc rather than go to one of my local N Manchester hospitals' A&E.

(*) - ironic that he should do this just turning his ankle over when running when he does several "extreme" sports.

I know a couple of unvaccinated people. One of them has an extreme fear of needle and have suffered from it all his life. The other has severe food allergies and she doesn't want to risk it.

Both of them are highly intelligent and educated. Maybe they are misguided and their fears are obviously irrational but I don't think that branding them stupid or telling them that we don't care if they die is going to convince them to get the vaccine.

Just because some people may be muisguided, misled or mistaken doesn't make them sub-human and undeserving of any empathy.  

Based on your recent posting history I am going to assume you are talking BS but none the less.

I have severe food allergies, it is almost as if when you rock up and answer all the questions including "do you have any allergies" it is for a reason. I also have a latex allergy which used to make medical settings much more challenging than now.

All that happened is they checked the list of ingredients against my allergies, asked if I had my EpiPen (I didn't but I did have my Jext pen) and suggested I waited 30 minutes to make sure I wasn't going to keel over and got on with it. Booster in 2 days I expect the process to be much the same. Also if it does all go to pot there are a fair selection of medical professionals around, and zero reports of anyone dying due to an allergic reaction to the vaccine but hundreds of thousands of people dying due to the virus
 

On that front, I understand the NHS are also offering a bespoke, staffing-intensive approach to people with needle needle phobias where they'll take every effort to work with the patient to get them to receive a dose of the vaccine.

Nobody is saying that food allergies are a good reason to not get vaccinated.

I am simply pointing out that some people have fears and doubt, which may be irrational but for them it's very real. Not everybody trusts the doctors or the system. Some others have been brainswashed with the wrong information. Whatever it is telling them they are stupid isn't likely to help them in any way overcome those fears or increase trust in the medical advice.

They have been brilliant with me. I can't say I have a phobia but I'm far, far from being a fan of needles.

Do we? I think that we could possibly run such things (or electrical power stations etc) for a while, but even if we still have the documentation, large factories become so complex that no single person really know how the whole thing works.

I think that a level of technology where one person can still understand the process from raw material to product, i.e. roughly Renaissance tech with some added knowledge, would be our sustainable postapocalyptic level.

edited 2nd para so it hopefully now makes sense...

I have a pretty serious needle phobia, I have had a shock response and fainted/fallen off chairs and had to be caught by medical staff in the past.

I have chosen not to have flu vaccines due to this.

But I have had covid vaccinations and the staff at the centre have been brilliant, taking me out the back of the sports hall let me lie down while having the jab and giving me time to recover.

I think they were aware that having me faint and fall off the chair in front of 30 other people in the hall wouldn't be good.

Still really don't like it but being able to lie down seems to ensure I don't get the shock response, which is the worst part. I hope others are not shy to mention their phobia, I think most staff are aware and pretty supportive now, which might not have been the case 20 or 30 years ago.

I don't know, if my friends are being stupid I am quite likely to tell them so, tell them why and then have a discussion about it.

The highly intelligent and educated would be willing to look at the data put in front of them and make a more evidence based decision, the thicker ones are never likely to change their mind if I call them stupid or not but it is good to remind them ever now and then they are being stupid.

I have no doubt that there is plenty or suppprt in place, and I have no doubt that it works far better at getting people vaccinated than telling them they are stupid.

I'd agree that the semiconductor industry is very fragile and the electronics supply chains even more so.  Every complex electronic product will have multiple advanced chips in it that only a very small number of companies know how to make e.g. flash memory, dram, processor.  Almost everything would be impossible to make if the chip manufacturing in Taiwan was disrupted by the Chinese military.

I don't think it would take generations to get the industry going again though even after some kind of plague apocalypse.  We are pretty good at writing knowledge down and everything you'd need would be there in electronic documents.  Even if 70% of the specialists died you could train new scientists and engineers from the documents and get it going again in far less than a generation.  Making something work again when you have the documentation and hardware to study is a much easier problem than working it out from scratch.

There is a big difference between not having a vaccine for legit medicl reasons and telling others not to have it on social media (not you but the anti-vaxxers that do so)

In my experience insulting people is not a good way of gaining their trust and convincing them.

Yes, a friend of my step-daughter delayed several months due to a severe needle phobia, but was supported through vaccination when she asked for help.

In your experience, how well does burning through multiple UKC user accounts a month work out?

You seem intent on using faux-outrage to try and shut down any discussion of the well evidenced fact sick and dying unvaccinated people are a major problem at the moment.  Nobody on this thread is trying to convince them, and they are not reading this thread in droves.  So it’s rather disingenuous of you to keep responding to people here as if they were directly addressing vaccine refusers rather than discussing their existence?  

It's a different matter, those who go on social media to argue against vaccination have made the choice to expose themsleves publicly and therefore can't complain for being on the receiving end of ridicule.

But that's a minority. for the most part it seems to me that those who dont wan't to be vaccinated have simply irrational fears about it or lack trust in the system. Or have simply been given the wrong information.

Being condescendeing to those people or branding them stupid and evil is not likely to be a good strategy to reach them IMHO.

They are already my friends, so already trust me. I am not trying to convince strangers.

I have never called a friend stupid and them not at least think twice about their decision, sometimes you just have to call a kettle black.

Glad it worked for you. Personally I had more success convincing family and friends to get vaccinated with diplomacy and gentle persuasion than insults.

I quite agree.

The inevitable result though for people who do not take measures to protect themselves from a pandemic virus is that they are likely to get ill and potentially die of it. For myself I prefer to keep away from such people for their own safety and that of my family

Don't most virus eventually become less troublesome, I realise there are exceptions, but a virus that wipes everyone out doesn't last very long, from an evolutionary standpoint a host that doesn't die is a better option.

I am with you on that especially the last statement.

I would argue that a big part of the problem is a government that doesn't engender trust asking you to trust it over a constant stream of changing advice. Unfortunately such mistrust extends to science.

The anti-vaxxers may be a small minority but shout loud

Fair enough, but in the end I suspect that we will all get exposed to the virus at some point in our lives even if we do our best to keep away from the unvaccinated.

I am therefore not really sure that shutting yourself off from the unvaccinated is a course of action that's going to have more benefits than downsides.

Why?

You should try some of that here instead of coming in with ghost accounts and tell us how the NHS is falling apart because you decided to go to the GP instead of A+E when you broke your foot

Hmm, maybe I wasn't clear enough in my previous post...

I think you're probably right about the "depth" we would fall to before our level of civilisation would become sustainable.

The point I was trying to make is that I think our climb back up would be swifter because we would have the knowledge of the things we were trying to achieve rather than having to discover them.

Not sure what that has to do with any of that.

You seem to be trying to convince us not to call people who haven't been vaccinated stupid because they won't trust us. Yet you don't come across as a trust worthy character, so why should be trust you about not calling stupid people stupid?

Do you really need to be convinced that insulting people is generally not a good way to earn their trust ?

I don't think calling someone stupid for doing something stupid is an insult, more a matter of fact.

Because it's unlikely to yield any positive result.

Doesn't really matter whether you call it an insult or not.

IMO you're not very likely to be successful at convincing someone to do something or change their behaviour by calling them stupid, no matter how tempting it can be.

That is of course, if your objective is to convince them. If your objective is to feel temporarily morally superior, then it may work.

It has been nearly 2 years of this, if they haven't realised by now that they should get vaccinated

1. They are stupid

2. There is not going to be any changing their mind

In what context? If I was chatting to an anti-vaxer trying to convince them to get jabbed I agree, insulting them wouldn't help.

But if someone asks me what I think of anti-vaxers in a social context, I'll tell them honestly.

What's your problem? 

COVID19 already is the less troublesome version compared to Corona viruses such as MERS which kills 34% of those infected.

I don't have problem. I simply disagree with you, in my opinion just because someone refuses to be vaccinated does not automatically mean they are "stupid". I have not observed that to be generally the case.

People make mistakes and have irrational fears sometimes. Branding them stupid may be a cheap way to temporarily feel intellectually superior but it doesn't solve anything.

Well, they believe things that aren't true and behave in a way that puts themselves at greater risk of harm and put others at risk while doing so.

You can call that what you like, but being a stupid wanker seems to me to summarise it nicely. 

Well, it's just as well I don't want to earn your trust....

You continue this misleading act of interpreting people discussion the issue and their feelings on it here, with other people elsewhere trying to convince people to take the vaccine.

I think there's a lot of confusion over the subject, and all viruses are by no means alike.

The intersection of the virus and the hosts becomes less troublesome.

Sometimes the virus carries the brunt of the change this needs, sometimes the hosts.  For SARS-nCov-2, the hosts are carrying out the brunt of the change through gaining immunity.   

SARS-nCov-2 mostly only kills people older than child-baring age, and so it isn't going to run out of hosts because of its lethality.  It's perhaps a special case because it mainly kills though immune dysregulation in older people rather than intrinsic lethality.  Dysregulation that mostly occurs with people who've got to old age without ever being exposed to the virus when they were younger and more robust. Once the disease is in endemic circulation that special case goes away.  So with no change in the virus, its apparent lethality would drop over the first years of infection.  As it happens, the intrinsic lethality has been increasing significantly from wild type > alpha > delta, and omicron looks somewhere between alpha and delta level.  That intrinsic lethality has not been realised because of improved immune levels in the population and improved clinical care.  Go back to 2020 and unleash delta or omicron instead of the wild type and we'd probably be looking at a 5x worse disaster.  

Medical care and vaccination take a lot of the pain out of the process of toughening the hosts up to circulation of the virus, by supporting older hosts through their first immunogenic run-ins with the virus and by giving them prior immunity at orders-of-magnitude lower risk.

I don't see that this virus would need to become less lethal to succeed more; the only benefit I can see (from the virus' view point) would be that lower lethality would reduce society's pressure to control the virus.  However, the increased immunity across the global population is likely going to make that a non-issue

Seems to me you are very quick at judging people based on only one thing.

Someone over takes on a blind bend - stupid wanker

Someone lights a match in a petrol station - stupid wanker

So on, so forth

I know of two unvaccinated people in my family. They have both PhDs, one in renewable energy and one in biology of some kind. They're not stupid.

They are stupid when it comes to vaccines and some other aspects of health care.

Sometimes stupidity is very specific.

Another unvaxxed person I know is stupid in a very general sense. It's difficult to pin down but they just don't seem to understand instructions like other people.

After millions of Covid deaths and billions of vaccination jabs, it's getting towards the point where not getting vaxed it as stupid as flat earthers. 

So basically everybody who's ever made a mistake that potentially put others at risk is a stupid wanker. I am afraid there probably aren't many human beings around who don't statisfy your definition of stupid wanker.

Someone who intentionally made a decision to put others at risk. You don't mistakenly not get vaccinated, or mistakenly throw a rope down a crag, or mistakenly over take on a blind corner.

We’re all doing things that put others at risk all the time.

Many of us chose to drive a car. Doing so undeniably increases your risk of yourself and others coming to harm, and not in an insignificant way. Not to mention all the deaths due to air pollution.

Do you think you can live by the standard you set ?

I don't think folk care anymore, 12months of global vaccination, a billion plus doses, more data available than the human mind can absorb, exactly how much guidance does an intelligent, educated person need? 

That's why there are exhausts, catalytic converters, unleaded fuel, driving tests, tyre laws, speed limits, seat belts, air bags, abs... 

All you are saying is that it is reasonable in some circumstances for the legislator to intervene to modify dangerous behaviour. I agree.

I am currently keeping away from most people until numbers go down

That's what my sister does. She's the one who deals with nervous patients.

It does rather cast doubt on your purpose and motivation here. You don't even try to pretend that you are a genuine new poster, or deny that you are a serial account burner.

You know; that trust thing you were talking about.

Not sure how a post about my recent experience with the NHS tells you anything about my motivation. Why do you assume that I have a particular political agenda ?

I am simply questioning the wisdom and effectiveness of branding anybody stupid just because they aren’t vaccinated.

Because 99.9% of new accounts in the last 2 years have an agenda which has nothing to do with the mountains.

You appear to be active here in trying to prevent discussion about the major threat presented to state funded healthcare in the UK by the large number of vaccine refusals.

On another thread, you're telling what I suspect are lies - and if not are the sob story of someone so slow they didn't go to A&E or minor injuries for a month whilst unable to walk - with what looks to me like an agenda to push for private, for-profit healthcare in the UK.  

Create a problem, propose a solution.

Opening a sentence with this phrase and omitting the perpendicular pronoun is very unusual, and it immediately reminded me of several previous posts.  

Now, let's dig out one of those examples.  It was another new poster, "ETPhoneHome" back in October 2021 [1], and they had this to say:

« Not sure how they are going to achieve that when it looks like it’s going in the other direction. 

Let the private sector take some of it and let them recruit from abroad at vastly higher salaries than the NHS can offer is pretty much the only short to medium term fix I can think of. »

Tell me, do you get paid for this, or is it just a very specific hobby?

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/in_person_gp_appointments-74016...

I completely agree that the large number of vaccine refusal is a threat to state funded healthcare.

But that's the point, the virus evolution and what we do are intrinsically linked, there might never have been an Omicron variant without our massively successful vaccination program.

We can't do anything towards protecting ourselves without altering the evolution of the virus itself.

Personally, I can't decide whether these sock puppets e.g. MichaelMloppiner are more of a [1] threat, [2] nuisance, [3] complete pest, or [4] something else

Regardless, I'm sick of them

I think I'll go with number [3], Could be wrong though

Omicron is not less lethal than say delta, almost certain. It has not evolved to be less lethal for a reason, it has not evolved to be less lethal than the range of other recent variants at all.

It does not need to be less lethal to succeed more; it seems to be in a pretty good place for global success - evidenced by the state of the world right now.

Perhaps this is a language issue, but the virus absolutely has not become less lethal, the people have become more immune.  

The difference is that omicron can breach previous immunity and demonstrate how much less vulnerable the population is to infection, where-as for now delta was being kept out by an earlier stage of immune response.  

Totally disagree.

•  It looks like it arose in a country where most of the immunity was achieved the hard way through live infection...
• Both live infection and vaccination produce sterilising immunity for a period of time after infection, giving a strong selective pressure for alterations to the key parts of the virus structure (receptor binding domain or RBD).  
• I think perhaps the main thing driving rapid variation in the RBD is not immunity, but the virus undergoing a phase of adaption to the possibilities opened up by jumping in to its new host, humans.  With RBD affinity (the ability of the virus to latch on to the host's cells) being a key multiplication factor in the "effective viral load" a person is exposed to, and with host adaption being all about improving that, and with viral load looking to be related to lethality, it seems to me that we're likely to see more lethality with ongoing variation, not less.  As has happened with all major variants downstream of the wild-type.

> We can't do anything towards protecting ourselves without altering the evolution of the virus itself.

I agree; but so far we've not encouraged it to be less lethal, rather we've toughened ourselves up a lot.  This has and will continue to reduce our need for control measures, so we won't apply so much selective pressure against it on the basis of it's "intrinsic" or "zero immunity" lethality.   So, no reason to expect it to become less intrinsically lethal because of our actions.  If anything, better medication and immunity from serious illness will give it the freedom to further optimise its host-attack profile raising its intrinsic but suppressed lethality further.

Let's just hope we don't ever have a pandemic that wipes out all T-cell and memory T-cell based immunity...

[2-4] inclusive at least.  [1] -a threat to the good will on this site, and more of a threat if they're equally active on Friendface, Chitter etc.  I did wonder if they made their first post to this thread from the wrong account and then just stuck with it hoping nobody would notice.

wintertree, thanks a lot for your reply. I'm aged over 70 and in addition am not tech-savvy or new media-savvy. I'm trying to learn but it's not easy for me

Isn't that a bit too early to make such definitive statements about it ?

"almost certain" does not equal "definitive"

Although I did mean "alpha" to "delta", easily muddled am I.  My bad.  Early studies are landing omicron in the ballpark of delta which is a lot above alpha.  

“Almost certain” implies a pretty high degree of confidence. I am not sure it is justified yet.

This BBC article seem to suggest lower severity:

“Omicron is thought to be milder due to a combination of our immunity and changes to the virus itself.

The variant is mostly infecting people who have been infected with other variants before or who have been vaccinated. Both give the immune system a head start.

However, laboratory studies have also shown changes in how Omicron infects our bodies. It is better at infecting our airways rather than the deep tissues of the lungs - this could make it easier for the variant to spread, but milder as it is further away from the delicate parts of the lungs. 

Prof Ravi Gupta, who performed those studies at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC: "The clinical data on reduced severity fit with lab data suggesting Omicron has shifted its preference.

"Vaccination remains vital to protect against severe disease and also to protect against future variants."

“
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59769969

The article seemed reasonably well researched. Not sure what the truth is on the matter but at best it looks like this is still being worked out.

Yes, lots of unknowns.

The best study I've seen for making a properly controlled comparison of intrinsic nastiness for omicron in the UK population is [1] and has it close to delta, probably a bit lower.  That still puts it above alpha.

I feel the quote from Gupta is an over-stretch personally, and further quotes from him elsewhere  recognise that their lab work is not tested against patients.

I'll be very surprised omicron less intrinsically lethal than alpha. 

I could always be wrong - and would be only too happy to be proved wrong.  Which ever incarnation you come back with can laud it over me till the cows come home at that point.  I'll be happy because things will have got even better.

[1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/mrc-gida/2021-12...

How do you define “intrinsic lethality” ? I am not sure what it means to speak about the lethality of a virus without taking into account the immune protection of the hosts.

You have separate the two. How lethal a virus is and its impact on a population aren't the same thing. 

If you took two identical groups of people and exposed them to the same amount of each viral strain respectively, which would have more people die? 

Thankfully a lot of the scientists and clinicians trying to answer these questions do see the point of determining this.

That point should be blindingly obvious to you, when considering the large number of people with no prior immunity through vaccine refusal and the existential threat they represent to healthcare across Western Europe. 

The lethality when those with no immunity are exposed to it. There are still plenty of those, in the UK and globally.

The fact that vaccination and prior infection are moderating that lethality is not a function of the virus itself.

Are there ? According to the ONS about 95% of the population has antibodies either through vaccination or prior infection.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/con...

Presumably many common cold viruses could be quite nasty if we were completely immunologically naive to them.

But surely what matters to us is how lethal they are in the real world not in a parallel universe where nobody has immunity against them.

Surely the results of such an experiment would  depend on the immunological protection of the two identical groups being tested ? 

That’s the *adult* population.  Order of 3 million people.  

This might go some way towards explaining why ITUs the nation over are mostly full of unvaccinated covid patients.

The real world has on the order of 1 m to 3 m adults with no effective immune protection from a virus that might sweep through the whole population in a month if we dropped all restrictions.

Once we’ve finished processing sick vaccine refusers through ITU, which lethality matters more will shift almost entirely away from the lethality posed to individuals with zero prior immunity.

But then you already knew all this, didn’t you?

I hope most readers can figure out I meant two identical groups with no prior immunity, given that I was clearly talking about the lethality posted to people without prior immunity…. I even used to those exact words a sentence or two later.

To be fair, I didn’t spell it all out clearly in the one sentence you chose to quote in isolation.  Chalk that up as one point to you if it makes you happy…

I understand what you meant now.

Not sure why you are so aggressive.

Yes, you seem to be stating the obvious. I don’t see how it supports your point about the intrinsic severity of omicron being almost certainly the same though.

I’m looking online at various well researched articles from reputable news sources and there definitely seem to be a lot of differing opinions out there, and quite a lot of caution from the various experts when it comes to making such claims.

Facebook or YouTube?

Oh, I think you know exactly why.

Then I’m surprised it’s caused you such confusion.

I don’t think you’d know a reputable source if it hit you in the face.

Time will tell, almost all the discussion on reduced lethality is in relation to increased immunity and we all know why that’s not relevant to the rate limiting step in the UK’s final exit from the pandemic phase.  There’s not that much comment on the intrinsic lethality yet, but there is data on outcomes for those admitted to hospitals and on other things, and it doesn’t stand out as leaving much room for this to be less intrinsically lethal than alpha.

I’ll be delighted if I end up being proved wrong.  For now it seems prudent to otherwise. 

Edit: Re: “reputable news sources” - much of the quality of reporting over omicron’s lethality is some of the least accurate reporting I’ve seen during the pandemic…

Unfortunately, the government and media are pushing the idea of reduced inherent lethality. As are some posters.

I am not on facebook. I don't look for covid information on YouTube either.
I read mostly BBC, Financial Times, NYT and the Guardian

Most of the articles I have seen seem to suggest Omicron is less lethal because people have more prior immunity but also because it works a bit differently.

In any case, I suspect most people are only interested to know whether this is less severe or more, regardless of the reason. That is probably what the media will focus on.

The media will focus on what the government and the owners of the media want them to focus on which at the moment is to downplay risks.   Watch for the point when the government changes its mind: all of a sudden the BBC will be full of interviews with relatives and sick people in ICU.

A higher percentage of mild cases with Omicron doesn't mean 'less severe' if the mild cases wouldn't have been cases at all if exposed to Delta.

No, I don’t. 

Because it’s unrelated to the question on severity.

So an article on the BBC written by a seasoned health correspondent with presumably years of experience in health journalism is not a reputable source ?

One thing is sure it’ll trust that more than the opinion of some random guy on a climbing forum.

What makes you the quality of it is bad, or at least inferior to your own analysis ?

I work with one person who isn't taking a booster - however he's had severe heart problems after doses 1 an 2 so he's ok, but will be at high risk when he eventually catches it.  I can think of 2 other people who are devout anti- vaxxers, and are generally believers in all sorts of nonsense.  How do you deal with those? I haven't spoken to one recently, but I know there was a big outbreak at the daughter school that hospitalised a few parents so maybe that will help

Genuine question - Spanish Flu end of WWi time period killed circa 10% of those infected - that just mutated down to a less lethal version ?

If the cases are milder, then it’s good news, does it matter that much if it is because of prior immunity or not ?

Yes, you do.

Understanding the intrinsic lethality absolutely cuts to the core of societal severity when the need to provide intensive medical care to zero/low immunity vaccine refusers is a key limiting step on the nation.

It’s pretty clear some journalists have better understanding than others. JBM has one of the best IMO, despite not having a background in health journalism.  He takes the time to understand the primary sources when forming his opinions and deciding how to communicate them onwards.  You say the FT is one of your main sources; to my reading his opinion and presentation of understanding over omicron lethality is quite similar to mine.  

You do as you like. 

You can tell what I think from my posts on this thread. 

I’m not comparing it to my analysis.  You seem confused if you think reporting (them), interpretation (me) and analysis (not me) are comparable.

Sorry, but no I don’t.

Ok, we all know that vaccine refusers are a problem, but I don’t see how this statement is supposed to  evidence your comment that omicron is almost certainly as intrinsically severe.

You said “I don’t think you’d know a reputable source if it hit you in the face. “.

Surely seemed to imply that my sources were not reputable.
 

not really.

You can nitpick on the terminology if you like, the impression we get reading you us that you think that the reporting is of poor quality and that you know better.

I am trying to understand what makes you think that and so far you’ve not really put any meat on the bones.

My objective is to probe and question claims that some on here are making to see if they hold up to scrutiny.  Also I am not posting under several names.

Yes, you do.

It doesn’t.  I took “the question on severity” to the the question under discussion - which kind of severity (low- or high- immunity) matters and why.  Both matter, lots,

That was not what I intended to imply.

It’s not a nit-pick when people - in particular the vaccine refusers - get a dangerously wrong impression about the severity for them.> the impression we get reading you

Who is “we”

Sometimes I think so. I know I’m not the only one…

God, you're a bullsh1tter

And you are a rude person.

No. I am 'a' rude person. Can we please stick to standard English?

Does his father smell of elderberries?

Do you fart in his general direction?

Typo. fixed. Happy ?

Now I am. Can you please use proper punctuation? It makes life so much easier.

You're right. I'll stop paying attention to anything you say.

I have not made any claims as to what the severity of Omicron is. This is probably best left to experts.

You've posted some strong hints, though...

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/doubling_every_15-2_days-742253...

Aside from the immunonaive, intrinsic lethality is a bit redundant now no? What’s more intrinsically lethal, SARS or a rhinovirus that causes the common cold?

I haven’t followed all of the back and forth in the discussions, but I think if you asked most people in the UK whether Omicron is less severe they’d tell you in good faith that it was. Even someone pretty well educated reading the BBC, the FT, Reuters would come to that conclusion unless they really dig into the science.

Sure, but that's a big "aside" right now.  Large parts of Western Europe is in lockdown because of low/zero immunity vaccine refusers, and if the UK gets pushed in to lockdown by omicron it will likely be due to our smaller but still significant reservoir of low/zero immunity vaccine refusers.

Indeed.

For most people the distinction doesn't matter one jot, but for those with stand-out poor immune systems and for those refusing vaccination it's a critical distinction.  It's also important when it comes to policy decisions on moving away from any and all control measures in any country with a significant pool of low/zero immunity vaccine refusers.

JBM at the FT has been qualifying this very well, as have some of the foreign media reporting of science out of South Africa.

The problem with this way of thinking is that is does not support further immunisation. Separating the intrinsic severity and that that which results from immunisation is an essential part of the message needed at this stage.

We live in a world where expertise is ignored - at  our peril! 

Read again. This post is a quote from a BBC article. Not my views.

What it does show though it that here are differing opinions out there from very respected experts, hence why I would take wintertree's opinion on the matter with a large pinch of salt.

As for my opinion on the matter, I don't have one, I simply don't know at this stage.

I know it is. But you posted it. I don't buy the "I'm only asking questions" line. Too commonly used by serial bad actors.

Freedom of speech and all that; we’re all allowed our opinions and it’s clear that’s all I offer - sometimes backed by some basic transformation and presentation of data.

Sometimes I get it wrong, and you know what’s great?  When I do, I’m still here under the same name and I can own my mistakes.

I’m not going to skulk off like a bad smell and dissociate myself from everything I’ve ever had to say.

There’s a knack to knowing which experts to listen to - and also to finding the entirety of what they had to say rather than the 1-2 lines to make it in to the news story.

What is so wrong with the article I posted ?

Everybody can have an opinion. Some of them are more harmful than others though. We've seen the damage that spreading false certainties can cause.

Thankfully we’ve all experienced your unwavering commitment over the last 21 months to repeatedly and falsely labelling of some opinions as “certainty” through what must by now be in excess of 50 disposable accounts.

Who pays your VPN bill?  I feel this is a pertinent question…

Why would I need a VPN ?

Because you’ve spent the last 21 months endlessly signing up for new accounts which means new email addresses.  Any half-way competent anti-SPAM system would be able to identify the pattern behind that (and I don’t just mean IP address) and I strongly suspect UKC’s ops people are a lot more competent than average.  

For you to keep deliberately evading your bans must require some form of IP address obfuscation that’s not available to your average punter without a VPN.  

The only plausible alternative I can see to a VPN is that you work in or have influence over the IT department of an organisation that has a class B subnet containing multiple genuine UKC users.   A long established European university, for example.
 

Well that's quite a story. Too bad that it's a totally made up paranoid fantasy.

And yet you never seem to be totally denying these accusations or being angrily outraged by them. You appear to be merely pointing out where people haven't got their suppositions quite right.

Doesn't (to me) appear to be the natural behaviour of someone who is "innocent" of these sock-puppet accusations; and maybe you don't care either way.

Doesn't bother me, I'm not tuned in to notice these things, but your style doesn't really add to the debate because it ends up going round in circles. I suggest you confine yourself to threads like the one discussing navigation off the Ben.

Ah, the old calls of “paranoid”.

You’ve just made it clear in a thread in “The Pub” that you’re not new here.  

Yet here you are with a new account.

About 10 former posters have been banned (not at my request) and have called me paranoid for my suggesting they’re using something like a VPN to evade the anti spam measures.  That’s observed reality, no paranoia there.  Except perhaps their (your?) false belief that I’m having them banned…

It’s clearly not paranoid to suggest you’re hiding behind yet another new account, dissociated from former identities.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

My suggesting a VPN is part of your endless deception is a technicality, it may be right or it may be wrong, but it’s not paranoid.

Always with the personal attacks when you’ve got nothing.  Same old, same old.

You called it a “fantasy”.  That’s nonsense.  I gave two alternatives to how you endlessly evade anti SPAM measures.  I qualified those as “…. That I can see”.  Perhaps my vision is limited - here, after 10 years, is your chance to explain something to me, to teach me something.  I’m leaving the door open to other possibilities and not maintaining a narrow minded fantasy.  Tell me, what lies behind the door?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

If someone stepped in front of a bus it's far more likely that they would be declared dead at the scene and the NHS would be spared any further expense.

The effect on the bus driver - and anyone else around - would not be exactly pleasant however.

You really are full of sh1t, aren't you?

Because people, like my colleague, make the mistake of thinking that it’s mild just due to the mutation and vaccination provides additional protection above that. Luckily he’s the opposite of an anti vaxer, having had 5 vaccine shots due to issues with the recognition of international vaccinations. 

Good. Now f*ck off and subscribe to TWIV and come back in a week or so when you’ve digested what the experts have to say. 

Day 17, you must be due a reincarnation? 

Prior immunity is not the only factor.

People seem to be catching Omicron from lower levels of exposure than would be required to catch Delta.     Catching it with a low exposure may make the ratio of cases to serious disease look better but the absolute number of serious cases may well be higher.

Replying to a hint that elsewhere new poster MichaelMloppiner is not a new poster (faux innocence) we get in a thread from yesterday

'Regardless, my ailments are not the point here, my point is that the primary care system seem to be in dire shape at the moment, at least for me and the people I talk to in my area.'

Could this be that the healthcare system is jammed up at the moment with a new infectious disease, and that it is so jammed up by the people he is defending/supporting here, and if we took his advice, and let rip, it would be even more so...

I'm also curious what other ailments there might be as anti-vaxxers usually come with there own , very special problems.

Just below, we get this from VSisjustascramble:

'> We expect American outcomes on a Botswana budget.'

Lets get this clear, by american outcomes , you mean the ones you see on TV which are actually inaccessible to many americans as they cannot afford a top end health insurance  For many Americans healthcare is an absolute lottery, and while medicaid and medicare work miracles, they are on tiny budgets, and you get what you pay for.  And don't think that being on a corporate deal will fix everything as they usually come with very high deductibles and copayments.  You obviously dislike the NHS but for 99% of people it's a massive improvement £ for £ .  And for that 1% you will no doubt now focus on, just as good. 

Guy, guys, guys. Come on!

MichaelMassiveWhopper is a classic of the type. He is a sealion, an utterly perfect example of this phenomena.

He is a crusader, burning all of your time, gently teasing you, goading you, under a thinly veiled, yet transparently clear civility. He won't resort to insults, he loses the moral high ground if he does. Classic.

This shire is wholeheartedly on the side of sensible precautions and vaccine take up. He wont change your minds, you are all too convinced (as am I). 

It begs the question of what, under the suspicion of more fake accounts is his objective,  his motives. I cant see an agenda,  only to make people frustrated and illicit responses, which is working. It's the classic sport of this particular sea creature. You wont persude him, and Im not sure of what he is trying to persuade you of. 

I was regrettably kicked off my local FB group recently for robustly engaging with a small pod (?) of known sealions who were spreading lies to people who might be persuaded. I felt I had a cause but fell foul of pushing my facts too strongly and not realising that one of the admins was an anti-vaxxer, so that outcome was inevitable. There's no such danger here because there is, in my view, nobody who would be swayed by COVID misinformation. My advice, ignore the sealion, starve it of the oxygen and attention it so desperately craves, and it will sink back to the depths from whence it came.

Edit: this is not addressed to the person in question but to the third person so any subsequent response will not be acknowledged by this subject in question.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/07/sealioning-is-a-co...

Interesting, never heard anything about that. Why exactly would they have lower levels of exposure and how would it have been measured ?

To be honest I think this whole discussion is a bit moot. We will all get Covid whether we like it or not at some point in our lives and that’s pretty much a statistical certainty as far as I can tell.

Unless we are looking at new lockdowns, all we can do is get vaccinated and hope for the best.

So am I. Just because I don’t think it’s a good idea to insult vaccine refusers as a way to convince them to get vaccinated (doh!) does not mean I don’t think vaccine work. They do and we should take them.

I think it is getting towards being moot in the UK.  It seems like the Tories have decided we are all going to catch it and I don't think the devolved nations will be able to do more than delay things a little - which is actually very valuable in terms of not overloading healthcare and getting more jags done.

Personally, I would have liked more caution and a few weeks of trying to keep it in control while collecting data before throwing in the towel.  If it does turn out to be nearer the bad side of predictions than the optimistic one I'd have liked some thought on whether it could be slowed down enough so Omicron specific vaccines were available and the NHS stocked up on the new antivirals before we all caught it.

This is going to shift from being about whether you get Covid, to how frequently you get it and how badly you get it.

They’ve not really decided that though, that’s just the reality we’re dealing with.

I am no friends of the Tories but frankly I don’t think whatever party we had in power would have made much difference overall.

Agreed.

I think that the subject should move away from being wound up by people of uncertain character.

Part of the problem is that we don't have enough information, so far. Therefore a lot of evaluations are subjective. Evaluation of severity of pathogenesis of the Omicron variant is not necessarily skewed by a high level of vaccination, as some of the information presumably is still coming from South Africa, where levels of vaccination are much lower. Some thoughts from there were that the pathogenicity was less severe, and with lower levels of vaccination, then a presumption could be made that that reduced pathogenicity could be inherent in the virus itself, rather than brought about by the overall epidemiological setting. 

Definitely the previous predictions of increase in numbers infected have been torn up by the facts(though see my next comment), but what are the likely R numbers with Omicron? Also did I hear a toted value recently saying that in the last week, that those infected was likely nearer to 1.7 million, due to people not reporting their testing truthfully, or just not testing etc. The result is that we can only be subjective in the most part still(?).