The Omicron variant

Eh, next two weeks...

What is the point of MHQ? It won't work here in Ireland.

Either everyone quarantines or don't bother at all. And we all know how it will work here, it will be people coming from the selected few African countries that will have to quarantine. Never mind that there's no direct flights and they can share a flight coming from Europe but Europeans are fine to go home and ignore the self isolation at home and head out to the pub to meet up with their mates for Christmas.

Ah we never learn.

I really can’t understand the panic considering it’s not hospitalising people in South Africa and the doctors over there have stressed that it’s mild. The reaction just seems crazy and way too hasty.

It wasn't taken out of context. "Mild in some people" suggests severe in others, and that is not thus far the case.

Dr. Coetzee said that so far it presents mild disease with symptoms being sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two of not feeling well. Maybe a slight cough, but no reported loss of taste or smell. She's seen about two dozen people, mostly healthy men, half unvaccinated.

She also said that it wasn't yet known how it would affect older people, those with additional underlying conditions, and that they wouldn't know for two to three weeks.

She seemed confused as to why "so much hype" was being driven with so little information available.

Surely all the players will have to isolate at home for two weeks when they get back and no training allowed. That match will be called off.

The doctor has done multiple interviews with the BBC and the Guardian. They're not being taken out of context.

'“We’re seeing a marked change in the demographic profile of patients with COVID-19,” Rudo Mathivha, head of the intensive care unit at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital, told an online press briefing.

“Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.”

The strong suggestion by Dr. Coetzee was that the cases she's seen so far have a milder disease profile than previous variants.

While the effect on older and more vulnerable people is not yet known, there is no reason to believe that Omicron will be more severe in those groups than previous variants. It therefore makes little sense to recommend "extreme caution" above and beyond what people have already been doing in accordance with their personal level of acceptable risk.

What action would you like to see a government take?

Would you have said the same when it appearred first in Wuhan?

Anyway maybe this Omicron will turn out to be much milder and could be a good thing but too early to say yet.

Certainly not. I was a very early "watcher" and had supplies bought in long before the first case was detected in Ireland. I was admittedly taken in by the propaganda out of China that showed people collapsing dead in the streets, and despite the fact that I should have known better having been in intensive care units before, I allowed the fear porn cameras in a Lombardy ICU to scare me, too.

And very quickly it became apparent that this was not the Captain Tripps it had been sold as.

Fool me once, etc.