Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Azza]

There's 40k or so positive cases at the moment. At the moment not many vaccinated people end up in hospital which is good.

But the government has to be proactive with measures because we wont fully know for a week or so what is different with this variant. Be that transmissibility, virulence or vaccine effectiveness.

It's already a concern because of transmissibility but if it's worse than models show and it's virulence is higher or vaccines are less effective then that's more people in hospital, more strain on NHS services especially in a winter period where the common cold and flu are starting back up now because previous measures have been relaxed.

So you've got a week+ before there's the data to work against and then 'x' time for the vaccine companies to update vaccines to make them more effective if needed.

For flu it's 5-6 months - https://www.who.int/news/item/06-08...za-vaccine-manufacturing-process-and-timeline


I imagine these sorts of temporary measures will come and go for quite a while, if there continues to be mutations and variants of concern, until there's real confidence in vaccine efficacy against the virus generally.

 

[tsubaki]

Get a haircut and shave you weirdo - 9 minutes of your life you won't get back.

Always hated that prick, right from the day he elbowed out Nicholas Crane on “Coast”.

A whopper of the kind that makes one want to celebrate the anniversaries of Culloden or Nevilles Cross.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

No it’s not okay for owners of small cafes either.

Unfortunately our pathetic govt have stopped short of making masks mandatory for hospitality.

All these businesses can do (and have been doing) is asking people to wear masks without enforcement and rely on people’s common sense and understanding to comply.

Who is going to pay small businesses to shut? How the hell is that going to work?

All it takes is for people to think about other people given the current situation and stick a piece of cloth over their gobs for a few minutes whilst inside a shop. It’s hardly a big deal.

Been mandatory in shops and public transport since the first lockdown here.

 

[jonnyboy316]

Seeing some headlines this morning that the early indications for Omicron is that the symptoms are more mild. If this turns out to be accurate could a more transmissible but weaker variant like this becoming dominant be better than the current situation with Delta?

 

[Ghost Rider]

Seeing some headlines this morning that the early indications for Omicron is that the symptoms are more mild. If this turns out to be accurate could a more transmissible but weaker variant like this becoming dominant be better than the current situation with Delta?

It would suggest covid is dying, from a combination of mutation and immune systems weakening its effects so it eventually becomes harmless , within s given amount of time. The medication alone is going to have a huge difference in how covid is treated going forwards.

When mutation is mentioned, everyone fixates on it getting worse but the concept that it will weaken is never really considered. So this could be the first example of this.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

Doesn't make sense. It's like wearing a condom for the first few thrusts then taking it off - takes away the whole point of the protective measure, so you may as well have not used it at all.

COVID spreads exponentially. So where people catch it barely matters because they take it home to families etc. John can catch it in the pub, then take it to work and spread it to Bill and Jane, while little Jimmy goes to school and brings it back to mum and so on. Doesn't matter if they all wore masks at a supermarket or on the train, and it doesn't matter if everyone else did, because there's so many other areas and routes of transmission. So you either have protective measures or you don't when it comes to limiting transmissability. That's what a lockdown is for.

The only reasonable argument for supermarkets and travel alone is to protect the vulnerable, but again, the situation hasn't changed - there's 2 Omicron cases in the entire UK, so there's no sudden reason now for a mask mandate to protect anyone that didn't exist days, weeks and months ago.

It's a tokenistic measure. It serves no real purpose. It's being done to 'do something' rather than for any logical reason.

Then mum goes to Asda without a mask and gives it to Bob, who lives with his vunerable wife and hardly ever goes to pubs or restaurants.

The logic (I assume) is that this is the least inconvenient measure that could be imposed that might make a difference (however small).

Given the amount of posts I'm reading suggesting that the population won't comply with another lockdown, I can kind of understand the err, logic.

As you say, it's not really enough but I think most of us know that this govt never have and never will take the best route.

 

[Tipp blue]

If this is true and must be proven beyond doubt to be true, then it will be time to let it activally spread, this could be the ticket out.. virus's don't generally mutate to become more deadly, if this is more infectious but mild its great news. And governments shouldn't try and lock it down out of existence.

South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’

Dr Angelique Coetzee noticed otherwise healthy patients showing unusual symptoms and worries how the new variant might hurt the elderly

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Brennan]

If this is true and must be proven beyond doubt to be true, then it will be time to let it activally spread, this could be the ticket out.. virus's don't generally mutate to become more deadly, if this is more infectious but mild its great news. And governments shouldn't try and lock it down out of existence.

South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’

Dr Angelique Coetzee noticed otherwise healthy patients showing unusual symptoms and worries how the new variant might hurt the elderly

www.telegraph.co.uk

Spanish Flu and Ebola both mutated to be more deadly.

Actively letting a killer virus spread…

 

[BlueToff]

Who is this moron? Quite impressive how much bullsh.. he's managed to fit into that

Tbf the bit about the vaccine isn't far off what Whitty said in the presser

He was a BBC history presenter for a good while I think

 

[BlueToff]

Spanish Flu and Ebola both mutated to be more deadly.

Actively letting a killer virus spread…

But the only way that is known to actually stop COVID spreading at all is lockdown.

 

[BlueToff]

It would suggest covid is dying, from a combination of mutation and immune systems weakening its effects so it eventually becomes harmless , within s given amount of time. The medication alone is going to have a huge difference in how covid is treated going forwards.

When mutation is mentioned, everyone fixates on it getting worse but the concept that it will weaken is never really considered. So this could be the first example of this.

I think it's clear from the initial data (but this needs finalising) that this strain is weaker, it could be more infectious but the early signs are it's hardly threatening, it's probably no worse than that cold/infection that's been going around in the UK for the last few months, that wasn't COVID. Yeah that was grim but again, wasn't a killer (generally speaking).

There is, as people pointed out to me the other day, the risk that as this is more infectious it could mutate into something more serious but ultimately so far no variant has. Just like no variant has been entirely immune to the vaccines or natural immunity through having COVID. But people are accepting now that it's always a plan for the worst-case scenario (maybe it should be, I don't have the answer for that). Ultimately though that line of thinking isn't great, because this time next year there will still be the same risk of variants, and same again the year after that and so on and so on.

 

[Tubey]

I‘ve seen a lot of analogies used with Covid but that is the first condom one I recall!

However going to skip diving into that one too deeply but address the rest of your post.

Take your example of John - yes he can catch it in the pub and then take it to work and spread it to Bill and Jane (which btw is why I’d prefer mask mandates to include general workplaces). But if John also goes to the supermarket after work whilst infectious and whilst maskless there infects Olivia then that is one more additional transmission that is potentially avoided.

Could Olivia get it by some other means, by her kid going to school with Jimmy for instance yes, but that already exists in your scenario.

Cutting even 5% of the transmission chains can help the numbers overall when dealing with exponential growth.

I'm sorry but it really doesn't work that way. I know on the surface it'd seem logical but it isn't, because of how many elements of society are interconnected and the central role of the home.

This isn't just me blindly saying it - https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/209673/covid-19-spread-different-social-settings-imperial/ - it's quite clear that the vast majority of viral spread is based in the home. The vast majority of the rest are in the workplace or social events. Supermarkets/shops have barely any impact.

...transmission is highest in locations in which sustained and prolonged contacts are made – including households, and other residential locations. However, substantial onward transmission also appears to occur in social interactions with sustained duration of contacts such as family meals, celebrations and religious gatherings.

That's why I'm saying it's a placebo that does nothing, because they aren't addressing holistically the actual cause of viral spread throughout this pandemic. It is simply a method to shift blame to the public for not adhering to a highly visible measure.

I use a condom as an analogy because it's actually perfect in explaining how a protective measure on protects if used correctly. Masks in supermarkets won't cut the transmission rates 5% because it quite literally can't; it's a fallacy. Even if every single person wore a mask in supermarkets and there was no cases ever recorded that were transmitted that way, because of how a virus spreads and how exponential growth works there would be the exact same outcome because people would continue to catch and spread it the 'normal' ways, specifically in the home.

 

[BlueToff]

The new rule on 10-day isolation for anybody who is a contact of someone with the new variant is ludicrous. And makes no sense.

If the push is to get everyone boosted up - and it is (I bet 100% that I'll be offered a 3rd jab by Xmas) - then why the hell are they still making any contacts isolate? It should be go and get a PCR test straight away, but if you're negative and double (or treble) jabbed, then why should you have to isolate?

Just utter nonsense.

Edit: I mean, isolate until you get a PCR test result back, but then after that if you're negative there is no reason you should have to isolate.

 

[Brennan]

But the only way that is known to actually stop COVID spreading at all is lockdown.

Big difference between actively letting it spread, and having some measures like mask wearing, vaccine passports, etc to slow the spread.

 

[BlueToff]

Big difference between actively letting it spread, and having some measures like mask wearing, vaccine passports, etc to slow the spread.

I know that.

But we've now got those measures back - ahead of time actually based on this useless government. You have had to show vaccine passes/covid tests to do a lot of things like gigs, going to events etc, and the UK back in September were going to bring vaccine passports in but the media, a load in Labour and everyone in the events industry lost their minds and they bottled it.

I'm half glad they did like because it's totally big brother esque and it's not how I think we should have to live our lives.