The Omicron variant

corkonion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299014#Comment_118299014

But in Ireland we need to add extra restrictions,, just in case like

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299014#Comment_118299014

That didn’t stop people running with it on threads.

What we have here is people declaring the new variant is “nothing” before we actually know that. The Twitter thread linked earlier in the thread is another example. Taking hopeful signs and projecting them to conclusions than the the data doesn’t support, yet.

For example this chart

Only conclusion on icu is that more data is needed. Doesn’t even start at the same point

The below is direct comparison and looks positive but far from definitive, yet.

patnor1011

These new variants looks to be weaker than what was here say 20 months ago. At this stage nearly 100% of population got either vaccine or covid so it seems we will be able to put this all behind us.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118298522#Comment_118298522

It's more journalists thinking they can jump the gun on calling Omicron. TBH some of the coverage on it is like a child who can't wait the requisite number of sleeps till Christmas!

Fiyatoe

Boards.ie should shut down any threads resembling “covid” or as much as a mutter of anything related to the topic.

virgin media and RTE should be pulled from our TVs for one month until the middle of January. That goes for radio too.

you’d find a lot more content people in January with a social experiment like this. Turn off the tv and forget about it all, does wonders. It really isn’t that big of a deal.

deholleboom

The SA government does not release proper data about Covid. No stratefied qualifications like vaccinated/ non vaccinated, age groups, comorbidities. Not even those coming into hospitals with severe Covid symptoms. If people are coming in with mild symptoms but are either sent there by their doctor or do have some issues that need to be looked at but leave after two days that is another thing entirely. I think healthcare in SA is free so there is no barrier for anyone not to go to hospital. People are still scared with Delta having just passed.

I and everyone else would really like to see those stratefications. We dont even know how many 'covid' patients are IN hospital separate from those coming in as in hospitalisations. And covid patients in ICU are still not there as far as i know as separate from people with serious health conditions and also have Covid.

We only know general data from official bodies and that data is really insufficient. Doctors, clinicians know what is going on on the ground in hospitals and they tell us the good news. That's why they are puzzled by the reactions. The SA government is actually making things worse by not giving proper stratefied data. It means that other countries could say: "not enough data yet" with some reason. Why SA is not doing that is anyone's guess and i wouldnt want to speculate.

The main thing in regards to illness i usually look at first are symptoms. It seems no heavy respiratory issues with Omicron especially lower r around the lungs. That was the big factor with Delta, even in SA where they had a huge problem with that. Large amounts of people coming in not able to breathe properly, people outside hospital in dire circumstances. That is not happening now.

SA was i believe the worst hit in Africa w the highest number of deaths during Delta. No images of oxygen deprived patients now.

It really IS different this time

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299173#Comment_118299173

Well, they are pretty sure it's more transmissible and they have early reasons to hope its less deadly but we don't know how much less deadly. So yes, it is prudent to add extra restrictions in case it turns out to be 50% more transmissible 20%* less deadly because then we'd be in a much worse position than we were with Delta.

*numbers are for illustrative purposes only.

We're hardly rare in introducing restrictions to deal with Omicron. Its just prudent governance to act early on a new threat until we understand the actual changes in Omicron.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299014#Comment_118299014

Definitely right. There was always optimism that a new variant would be more mild, but it was dispelled by the evidence much sooner than this. So there's great reason for optimism in this case. There would be no sense in getting ahead of ourselves and we still need to see what the research actually says. But fingers crossed for now.

titan18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299229#Comment_118299229

Tbf, there's more data saying it might be milder now than there is that's a variant of doom like the media were running with.

Mango321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299420#Comment_118299420

Omicron outbreak in Germany:

One index case travelled from South Africa, now at 19 cases.

'The contact persons also include children who have not yet been vaccinated. The adults are all fully immunized. Two children are seriously ill. An adult has a severe course of the disease.

https://www.kreis-kleve.de/de/aktuelles/vollstaendiges-laborergebnis-bestaetigt-eindeutig-zwei-omikron-indexfaelle-im-kreis-kleve/

Pinch Flat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299173#Comment_118299173

There's harsher restrictions in other EU countries

ACitizenErased

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118298862#Comment_118298862

This is exceptionally positive. Really need to see some European data on it though. Was expecting to see some by now.

corkie

TOTAL Global Confirmed CASES 2,324 (~78,065)

Denmark 577 -Source

UK 568 -Source

South Africa 398 (~77,844) Source

Canada 65-Source

United States 70 (~16) Source

Seems the site hasn't even been updated with yesterdays UK figures.

The usefulness of the site is getting less effective as the Numbers increase.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299807#Comment_118299807

Looks like Scotland's the one to watch. Incredible growth.

Azatadine

I saw Sturgeon on Sky News earlier and she was not far short of panicking. Talked about a tsunami of cases coming Scotlands way.

TonyMaloney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301146#Comment_118301146

Sturgeon:

"Omicron right now is rising exponentially, indeed what we are seeing in the data just now is perhaps the fastest exponential growth that we have seen in this pandemic so far."

She added: "If that continues, and we have no reason, at this stage, to believe that it won't, Omicron is going to very quickly overtake Delta as the dominant strain in Scotland.

"Indeed, I think we can now say with some confidence that we expect it to overtake Delta within days, not weeks - we estimate this could be as early as the very beginning of next week."

brickster69

Hopefully Scotland outsourced the modelling to NPHET

https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1469287683256201216

ACitizenErased

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301438#Comment_118301438

Not sure how he can make such a sweeping statement when he doesn’t know the hospitalisation rate. If the vaccines work against severe illness and the illness is milder that may not overwhelm hospitals

ninebeanrows

Has Nicola Sturgeon lost the plot?

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301580#Comment_118301580

Maybe

https://twitter.com/HumzaYousaf/status/1469284869024931842

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301146#Comment_118301146

And still the obsession with cases continues. What if none of these cases gets sick, or very sick? Will we stop counting case numbers then..

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301722#Comment_118301722

Probably eventually. We don't count the number of common colds every year. But Covid isn't as severe as a common cold now, is it?

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301738#Comment_118301738

I guess the hope is that it will eventually turn out to be. Sure isn't the common cold just another form of coronavirus? Or am I wrong on that

TonyMaloney

One thing that seems completely absent in any talk about omicron is the fact that it's currently 26 degrees celsius in Johannesburg, and 4 degrees in Glasgow.

SA are getting hit at the best possible time of the year, whereas Scotland and the rest of us are getting it at the worst. The obvious ramification of this is that Scotland's hospitals are already heavily burdened. But it also has potentially big implications for transmission and things like co-infection with other circulating viruses.

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301771#Comment_118301771

Average age in SA is 25 also

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301765#Comment_118301765

I think it is too. But they're different levels of harmful so there's a good reason to count transmissions of one and not the other, isn't that so?

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301874#Comment_118301874

I'm not sure. The meaningful metric would really be hospital admissions, but maybe it's more difficult to predict that.

corkie

Yes I know some/most people don't care about case numbers?

https://twitter.com/UKHSA/status/1469337059139760131

With the talk of Scotland in thread only 1 additional case today. (110 total)

UK +448 (1265 Total)

CONFIRMED Global CASES 4,020

Denmark 1,280-Source

UK 1,265-Source

South Africa 499 (~77,844) Source

Canada 87-Source

United States 78 (~49) Source

At least BNONews has updated figures.

bob mcbob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301961#Comment_118301961

At the start of December cases were on a steady decline with a 7 day average of 2350 cases. 9 days later the number of cases is rising rapidly and today there were 5000+ cases reported.

As hospitalisations lag cases by a couple of weeks, it will be Xmas before the severity of this variant is known

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301722#Comment_118301722

What if none of these cases gets sick

Do you think this is likely?