The Omicron variant

Agreed, had already read it and formed just that view. I think PCR tests still recognise this "stealth" variant as Covid, they just don't pick up necessarily that it is Omicron. You need to read carefully and to the very end to pick up on that though, the headline stuff is misleading (if I'm reading it correctly). I'm a Guardian subscriber/donater and would expect better from them of all newspapers.

Shoddy reporting from the guardian.

It means you cannot use PCR assays only to identify the variant - it will still test positive for covid. Our own Cillian de Gascun said as much last week, PCR is not reliable for detecting specific variant. The samples need to be separately sequenced to determine the genetic lineage.

It's been, to varying degrees, the same for every country since the beginning of the pandemic.

After reading all the comments, if you disgard all the obvious nonsense and keep a healthy distance from the extremes i think it is fair to say that every development since the onset of Omicron over the last 28 days leans more and more towards the positive the longer time goes by. It is quite clear this variant is very different and if we just concentrate on the data from South Africa we can compare the various waves with one another, keeping the population age profile of just that country as a non variable. The relationship between cases and hospitalizations, the symptoms, the effect of the symptoms and the duration, the stay in hospitals (duration), the age groupsand deaths.

In most of the well known variants (Alpha to Delta) we quickly saw the rise in cases followed by hospitalizations(7-10 days) and deaths (calculated 28 days after infection). Respiratory problems, cytokine storms etc. The last one, Delta did enormous damage and the images went around the world, starting from India and spread globally.

People with co-morbidities and impaired immune systems, the usual first in line victims, should be heavily impacted by Omicron by now but they are not. It is mostly younger people. That could be because of vaccines, despite the below average uptake, lower exposure due to older people being more careful. Anyway, we still do not see them going into hospitals in large numbers due to Omicron. This after a rapid spread over a month time, in the epicentre. We should see a big rise right now but we dont. Given time it IS likely hospital numbers will go up if the infection rate keeps growing.

That looks like good news.

Now, on the other hand i can understand the various counter arguments:

Too early to tell, different countries different responses. Hospital numbers are still high from Delta so caution is needed to diminish extra incoming patients. We dont really know how infectious it is, long term severity etc etc.

Every week it gets more positive.

It is my personal view that government and health bodies will maintain the caution line at least until the first monday in january to get us through Christmas despite the likely growing positive news over time.

It will be ignored and sold as 'keeping us safe'. It is understandable.

So, anyone complaining about PCR tests , effectiveness of restrictions, health measures etc, just see it as a form of virtue signalling. It is quite often not grounded in science, or i should say the right kind of the scientific method. It is not important.

What IS important is to show that somebody IS doing something.

If we can just see the reality playing out we can all have solid low expectations of governments and institutions. It is closer to the truth..

And eventually we will get out of this..

(Not a virologist, so would recommend following e.g. the study author and other virologists explaining significance)

He'll be vilified if he's wrong and vilified if he's right because he wasn't right soon enough.

Early estimates of the r0 in the UK is over 3. Its a flawed estimate because they are still targeting suspected cases for sequencing at the minute. But that would mean doubling every 3 days. If you ran that starting from 1 here, thats the whole population exposed/infected in 2 months, hospitalisation rate would have to plummet to the 1:1000s to put up with that ie. very mild and very effective boosters. Its around the 1% ish at the minute.

I am happy to bin the above as doomsday prophesizing but it just shows how much the data needs to keep emerging on the good side of things. Granted if the actual reproduction is broadens to doubling every 5-6 days and the severity is say half that of delta (post boosters) we could be in with a shot.

Weird how 50% of the vaccinated sample are only 12 days post dose 2. No info on intervals listed.

Is this a possible explanation for such a big difference between vaccination vs vaccination + infection ?

Several sources agree that Rt for Omicron in the UK is currently around 3 (i.e. 1 person infects an average of 3).

(If Rt is 1, cases plateau.)

You'll see the source post , same source say that's double every 3 days.