The Omicron variant

75% of Danish omicron cases are fully vaxed. Nearly 10% boosted

Where does he get the 8 being hospitalised (most likely) due to omicron?

I'd have thought the 19 would be the number hospitalised (tested positive prior to admission)?

I feel we have the same type of conversations that we had in the beginning of the pandemic including unknowns, projections etc, with the usual pros and cons so i take the data and weigh it up myself to establish where i stand. It has been pretty clear we cannot take data at face value, especially if the context has been either skewed because of the agenda behind it or not given at all. I can play devil's advocate and see the opponant's views then weigh them against the other side.

My take away is that one should get as close to detailed data analysis as possible. You can do that nowadays if available. You dont even have to be an expert but instead take note of the variety of views including those who do not follow the 'party line', maybe especially those with previous high standing but decided to go against the (unscientific word here)'consensus'.

I understand both the position of people in politics and health boards and it simply hard for them to stay neutral. They have to take a position and often take them without solid data backup and try to sell the message, up and downplaying variables according to their aim.

It is what they do. But i am only buying the narrative on the strength of both arguments and the data they are using to back it up.

What is happening right now is that because of the holiday season they think we can slow this oncoming train down and they expect bodies on the track...

UK +1576 additional confirmed cases of the #Omicron variant of COVID-19 have been reported across the UK. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 Omicron cases in the UK is 4713.

total (worldwide) 10,389 (~77,996)

@seamus

Tell that to people who where looking for them figures, when all that was reported was cases.

There's nothing to worry about, it's a very watered down version of c19. Boosters were designed before this variant came out. So if the original jabs a less affective with Omicron. Then what will the boosters do?

And this variant certainly wouldn't warrant a lock down and more restrictions etc..

So c19 has watered down to a common cold, the best news we have had for 2 years. Excellent!

If you are double jabbed and have had covid since, the HSE are saying that you need to wait 6 months before you can get a booster jab. Will this now change due to omicron?

Or will you get a booster appointment by text, and just take it?

I would have thought that getting a booster, even though you had covid, will reduce the transmission rate of omicron.

it is always good to check the numbers coming into hospitals and the numbers IN hospital. If you leave the Covid element out of it you can then see what the trajectory is and compare them to previous waves including the ones before the pandemic as it is normal to see people w respiratory issues and influenza pushing up the numbers around this time of year. Any rise in hospitalisations linked to Covid have that question mark hanging above it. One should ask: anything above normal for this time of year?

I know levels are high but until the numbers of people IN hospital actually start to rise in a big way we can only speculate about the impact of especially Omicron. Right now hospital numbers are flat and only slightly rising in the last few days. Again, not abnormal this time of year..

It is too early for conclusions about ICU and death even if reports of a death of someone with Omicron will be highlighted.

Some good news from SA

Look like flat 7-up will work on this Omnicron fellow

:)

I'd caution that Ireland recorded its first case of covid way back on the 29th of February 2020. We didn't record our first death until the 11th of March. There was only 8 deaths recorded between the 11th and the 25th. On the 26th we recorded 10, and from then on things got pretty grim for a while.

SA recorded their first case of omnicrom on the 26th of November. If the disease follows a familiar timeline then you wouldn't yet expect to see a surge in deaths. Fingers crossed it'll never materialise.

Seamus, glad to agree with you on your last point, this has always been a very "political" pandemic with many courses of action...ours is the HSE long standing sh1tshow protection

Aus / NZ is "we've backed ourselves into a corner here and can't turn back"

USA - Depends on whether its a blue or red state,

etc

Except that omicrons projected dominant status is largely due to its ability to evade current vaccines - the reason the S1 protein was chosen was not because of any notions of stability, but because the S1 protein is used to bind to and enter cells, so immunity to that was thought to be enough to create an effective and sterilising vaccine.

People with underlying health issues have in the past being admitted to hospital with the common cold, look it's a much weakened variant so it's great news IMO just before xmas

SA has high numbers of unvaccinated, so not really an issue there, the S1 protein was used because it would be an effective vaccine, the sterilising effect was unknown (and it's not really sterilising when in the blood vs. the respiratory system given where SARS-COV2 tends to multiply). Those with high levels of antibodies thus far have shown effective protection against Omicron, it will likely be less effective than Delta but better than no vaccine and probably on par with previous delta infection, I'd be surprised if protection against severe disease wasn't still highly effective.