Coronavirus

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

Jfman knows better than the WHO when it comes to discussing vaccine efficacy and prefers to discuss efficacy in his own terms. I guess he’s just a glass half empty sort of guy.

Meanwhile, according to the explainer here …

https://www.who.int/news-room/featur...and-protection

… efficacy is a vaccine’s ability to prevent development of disease, which in this case is Covid-19, and not its ability to eliminate detectable infection, in this case of the virus designated SARS-CoV-2.

According to that globally-accepted definition, we can indeed discuss Oxford/Astra, Pfizer, Moderna and the rest in terms of their ability to prevent people getting sick, and by that measure the statistics you quoted are the ones that apply.

We are indeed talking about two different things. However the post I replied to clearly referred to a ceiling of people to infect. A number of vaccines have been shown to have near zero efficacy against Omicron infection.

Vaccines will likely change the numbers getting seriously ill and/or die. But they aren’t likely to dent the Omicron spread.

I’m not sure they’re “my own terms” when they’re the headlines all the major vaccine manufacturers were happy to run with in their own press releases.

Originally Posted by Pierre

Works Christmas parties I would expect are fairing the worst due to companies not wanting to be held liable for anything.

I was on a rare evening out last night and the town and pubs were just as busy as I have seen them.

Pretty much.
Our works party got canned (not that I go to it anyway).
The pub I went to for a meal last night was as busy as usual.

[mrmistoffelees]

Sky reporting deaths with omicron have gone from 1 on Tuesday, to 7 as of Thursday

Of course, usual caveats etc. apply

A lot of Football matches have been postponed today, I presume due to covid issues.

(or possibly issues implementing the latest checking rules ?)

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Paul

A lot of Football matches have been postponed today, I presume due to covid issues.

(or possibly issues implementing the latest checking rules ?)

Most I’ve heard relate to players. Hopefully Arsenal goes ahead so I can watch something.

On a side note a couple of clubs reduced their capacity to get around checking rules. Aberdeen did that up here - max capacity 9,999.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by jfman

Most I’ve heard relate to players. Hopefully Arsenal goes ahead so I can watch something.

On a side note a couple of clubs reduced their capacity to get around checking rules. Aberdeen did that up here - max capacity 9,999.

The EFL said the other day 25% of players are refusing a vaccine.


Given that pretty much all of them are under 40 and have only just become eligible for a booster, even if they were double jabbed before, it's not surprising there are outbreaks at the moment.

Originally Posted by Hugh

Every two to three days, was the original estimate.

In today’s Times - going from around 500 cases per day to over 10,000 cases per seems a fairly rapid growth rate in one week…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c...read-2w05d0rwl

Originally Posted by Pierre

That chart is an “estimate”. We’ll know for sure in a week or two

---------- Post added at 09:08 ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 ----------



Come on Hugh you know the best way to mis-represent numbers is to use %

Testing has increased by 600,000 COVID cases by 40,000. Against last week.

Or a day or two…

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...erday-12499092

The daily figures, released by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), show 9,427 cases were recorded in England, 514 in Northern Ireland, 96 in Scotland and 22 in Wales.

Originally Posted by Taf

I've seen many posts from the "it's just a flu" idiots that have now changed to "I've got a runny nose and sore throat, it's just a cold, so I'm still going out with my mates to the match/pub/club".

Rather ignorant view to the point that MILLIONS of people have caught Covid-19, even before the vaccines were even released for general use, myself included and they had absolutely no symptoms.

The fact of the matter is, you can catch a lot of bugs and viruses and live on, many catch Flu and survive, many others sadly, do not but we learned to live with these illnesses - we got to stop panicking at every turn.

I am seeing on the ground, cancer issues being discovered far too late because people cannot get appointments, missed opportunities like these are going to cost many lives, we got to get the NHS back to being a National Health Service and not a National Covid Service.

[Julian]

90418 new cases announced today.

125 deaths.

1598910 tests

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Mick

Rather ignorant view to the point that MILLIONS of people have caught Covid-19, even before the vaccines were even released for general use, myself included and they had absolutely no symptoms.

The fact of the matter is, you can catch a lot of bugs and viruses and live on, many catch Flu and survive, many others sadly, do not but we learned to live with these illnesses - we got to stop panicking at every turn.

I am seeing on the ground, cancer issues being discovered far too late because people cannot get appointments, missed opportunities like these are going to cost many lives, we got to get the NHS back to being a National Health Service and not a National Covid Service.

Then it had to be balanced between treating covid & treating routine/urgent care.

If you allow covid to go unchecked then how long before such significant levels of primary/secondary health care professionals are unable to work due to either sickness or needing to isolate? What’s going to happen to those needing treatment for ‘normal’ issues and those with covid then?

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Then it had to be balanced between treating covid & treating routine/urgent care.

If you allow covid to go unchecked then how long before such significant levels of primary/secondary health care professionals are unable to work due to either sickness or needing to isolate? What’s going to happen to those needing treatment for ‘normal’ issues and those with covid then?

Hospitals have not become overwhelmed, so that is a red herring.

Covid has already been treated and has not been left unchecked. We have the vaccines. We were told they were our way out of it. We also have natural immunity to help.

We can’t ignore thousands of other medical problems that can be fatal if left unchecked this is the much bigger problem, not Covid.

Lockdowns do not work. Circuit breaker lockdowns don’t work either. Many will not comply, myself included. This madness of keep stopping & starting everything has to end now.

Didnt Wales try a "Circuit Breaker" last year.
Did it really achieve much ? The whole UK went into lockdown anyway.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Mick

Hospitals have not become overwhelmed, so that is a red herring.

Covid has already been treated and has not been left unchecked. We have the vaccines. We were told they were our way out of it. We also have natural immunity to help.

We can’t ignore thousands of other medical problems that can be fatal if left unchecked this is the much bigger problem, not Covid.

Lockdowns do not work. Circuit breaker lockdowns don’t work either. Many will not comply, myself included. This madness of keep stopping & starting everything has to end now.

That’s not what I’m asking, I’m asking you what will happen if you let the virus flood through society, the answer is that masses of primary & secondary health care professionals will be either off sick, or self isolating. both sets would potentially be unable to provide care to either covid or normal patients.

You’re right hospitals haven’t become overwhelmed yet, either in previous waves because we had lockdowns or in this wave because of course there is the lag between infection and hospitalisation. It is interesting however that London’s hospitalisation rate is up 30% week on week where the current epicentre of omicron infections is. I hope I’m wrong but I believe in the next 2-3 weeks we will see significant admissions. Time will tell.


Vaccines were our way out of this until the omicron variant came along, they’re now not as much the silver bullet that they originally were.

Natural immunity is not a protection against reinfection from omicron (or so the scientists say)

Turning to lockdowns, they’ve always been stated that their job was to suppress the spread of infection and to protect the NHS, nothing else. To that end they did their job exactly as was required.


Lastly, it is of course your choice should you wish to, and no doubt there will be a number of people who will agree and act in the same way. However, it appears in general that the British public are acting more cautiously.


Just my 2c

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Paul

Didnt Wales try a "Circuit Breaker" last year.
Did it really achieve much ? The whole UK went into lockdown anyway.

Wales have also had COVID passports, but they’ve decided to Dutch them now and just close nightclubs after some arbitrary date.

It’s all about optics, being seen to be doing something, when nothing is what might need to be done.

I remain nonplussed about any of it at the moment. Even with the infection numbers (and I read the update on the government U.K. HSA site and I consider myself intelligent but they don’t make it easy to understand) where they are, we are still miles away from where we were last year in regards to hospitalisation and death.

The vaccines are working and even with reduced properties due to Omicron, they still appear to be effective. Continue with the boosters, I had mine yesterday, I think we may be able to get through without further restrictions. Also turn off Sky and the BBC you’ll feel better………works for me.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by Taf

I bet she's not the only one hoarding them and causing greater scarcity for those that need them NOW.

I ordered some this morning no problem.