Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

Great to see considering the massive spikes in cases, just need to ride the wave out.

Interesting to see death rates so low in certain countries compared to others.

Top 10 lowest Covid death rates (per 100,000) in Europe (Dec 28 - Jan 10)

1. Sweden 1.0

2. Iceland 1.2

3. Ireland 1.2

4. Albania 1.6

5. Norway 1.8

6. Malta 2.0

7. Netherlands 2.1

8. Spain 2.1

9. Austria 2.3

10. Portugal 2.4

An interesting site showing what Iceland did on the vaccination front. It's looking more and more likely that AZ stood up very well in preventing serious illness in countries that handed out a lot of it to those most at risk especially the older people.

~21,000 positive swabs on ~40,000. These are the swabs taken on Sunday (9th).

First time since 13th December that the 7-day positivity rate hasn't increased.

Positivity rate tomorrow will tell us where we are.

Hey Goldengirl,

A belated Merry Christmas to you and everyone on the covid forum.

I got covid on Christmas day, then after 12 days of coughing and fatigue I made a full recovery.

No post-viral syndrome symptoms so I am lucky in that regard.

Im no virology expert like most of the people on Twitter, but if a virus mutates to be less severe, can it go back to being more severe?

Like if we have Omnicron now, could it mutate to back being as severe as Delta? Or is it a sliding scale down?

Yeah, but a whole lot better than spending completely unnecessary sick days with Netflix.

Technically it could, but all other things being equal, a more severe illness tends to have more difficulty spreading than a less severe one. Because severely ill individuals move around less, and are avoided more by other people.

However, the big determinant is the length of time it takes to become severe. Take HIV as an example. As severe as it comes. But not until you've had a long time to spread it.

Likewise a variant of Covid could theoretically remain mild or asymptomatic for two weeks before roaring into life and killing you. Making it much more infectious. It's a respiratory disease though. They don't work like that. HIV is an immune disease. They do work like that.

Now, if it became more severe AND more infectious to offset that, then we have a problem on our hands. But that's very, very unlikely.

Item 1:

The diseases on the far-right are many, many generations old. And as yet none have evolved to become more deadly. And there's a reason for that. The chart is pretty clear that above R-numbers of 7, the disease basically has to be less deadly to survive. Omicron is at worst somewhere between Mumps and Whooping Cough. More likely closer to measles.

Fears that the next variant will be more infectious and more deadly are bordering on irrational. It would be one of the first diseases in known history to have done it.

12 counties see Covid-19 incidence rates double over Christmas

As other's have mentioned, it is possibility that cases may have peak in that surge period and we would not be aware.

A counter arguement to the line I normally tow here.

Are we missing a major opportuinity by not removing all restrictions now & actively encouraging mingling. This might be a once in a lifetime chance to use a virus to enhance the immuinity of the general population with very little cost to the health service. In a matter of weeks it could burn itself out due to the lack of remaining hosts & the chance may be lost.

Ah stop will you ffs.

Yes, we are.

If you wanted to design a best case scenario for a pandemic this is exactly what you would choose, a clearly mild virus with high transmissibility. It seems logical that we should grab the opportunity rather than looking the gift horse in the mouth.